That horses so often went lame at about this period was due probably to the ignorance of many of the farriers of the very rudiments of practical farriery. In Ireland, possibly also in parts of England, a horse with what is called to-day a “wall” eye was looked upon as a harbinger of evil, and deemed likely to bring bad luck, especially upon the family and relatives of the man who owned it; while any man so “ill-advised” as to breed a fearsome creature of this kind often was afterwards glanced at askance by persons who before he had numbered amongst his friends. Then there existed also a superstitious belief in connection with a horse with a white hoof, but what this particular superstition was I have not been able to discover. Apparently the owner of a horse so marked was glad enough to get rid of it for a sum much below its true worth, and generally he deemed himself fortunate if able to sell such a horse at all. An instance is on record of a weakly foal being left out all night in a snowstorm as a superstitious test. We are told that it died of exposure, and that its owner at once thanked God for His mercy in having taken from him a creature born with an evil spirit, the inference being that but for the alleged evil spirit the little foal would have been able to withstand the rigour of the blizzard and the intense cold. Stolen horses in particular were believed to possess a supernatural power that would enable them to find their way home to their rightful masters if they succeeded in escaping from the thief. But plenty of horses, as we know, are to-day able to find their way home from a long way off, horses that have not necessarily been stolen. In justice let it be said that James laughed to scorn the majority of these superstitious beliefs. This is strange, for in some respects he must have been almost as superstitious as many of his courtiers—and for that matter as the great bulk of his subjects. Partial to tall horses, he expressed a wish that his nobles should not ride cobs, deeming such animals to be out of keeping with the majesty of the court. It was probably for this reason that he strove to encourage his subjects to ride tall horses. Then, though several historians appear to take it for granted that the Turkish horse was unknown in England until the arrival of the famous Byerley Turk in 1689, we may rest assured that Turkish horses were here in James's time, and probable before his time. Blunderville is only one of the early writers who say so in so many words. Incidentally he mentions that fully a century before the Byerley Turk was brought over he himself had seen “horses come from Turkey, as well into Italie as thither into England, indifferentlie faire to the eie, tho' not verie great nor stronglie made, yet very light and swift in their running, and of great courage.”