We have now reached a period when painters of animal pictures were sometimes commissioned to execute portraits of fine examples of horses, cattle and sheep. The engraving which faces this page is from a picture by Mr. Woodward of a Norfolk Cart Horse called DODMAN (East Anglian for “Snail”), of whose pedigree unfortunately no particulars exist, but which was foaled in the year 1780. This horse was the property of an ancestor of Anthony Hamond, Esq., and the portrait is preserved at his family seat in the parish of Westacre near Brandon. The long hair-lock hanging from the knee arrests the eye; this appendage, like a moustache on the upper lip and a hair lock projecting from the back of the hock, is regarded as the distinguishing mark of a strain or variety of the Shire. DODMAN seems to have been used as a stallion in the district whence was obtained, nearly a century later, HONEST TOM (1105), whose portrait faces page 60. Our next engraving is from a picture by George Morland, which was probably painted at about the same date as that of DODMAN. That artist, between 1790 and 1795, went into hiding in Leicestershire to escape from his creditors; he took up his abode in the neighbourhood of Mr. Bakewell’s famous Dishley Farm; and the horse portrayed resembles in no small degree pictures of some of Mr. Bakewell’s stud, which at that period had attained its highest repute. It is therefore exceedingly likely that this represents a typical Leicestershire Cart Horse of the time. It belongs to a type differing in some respects from DODMAN, being longer in the body, finer about the head and lacking the hair-lock in front of the knee, while the mane, tail, and feathering on the legs are less profuse. These two portraits afford opportunity of comparing two varieties of the Shire, the Fenland and the Leicestershire. The _Sporting Magazine_ of 1796 contains an article headed “Operations on British [Illustration: A LEICESTER SHIRE HORSE (1790-1795); after the Picture by George Morland.] Horses,” in which the following passage occurs:-- “We have a large and strong breed in the more fertile and luxuriant parts of the island; and there is no country can bring a parallel to the strength and size of our horses destined for the draught, as there are instances of single horses that are able to draw the weight of three tons.”