According to Virgil, in the years just before Christ the colour least liked in horses intended for work was white. “Yellow” also was objected to, the prevalent belief being that white or dun horses must _ipso facto_ be of weak constitution. White markings were not disliked, however, and we read that Virgil's Roman youth rode “a Thracian steed of two colours,” it had a white fore foot and a forehead with a white patch. The charger ridden by Turnus was also a Thracian horse, with markings somewhat similar. The following description in the third book of Virgil's “Georgics” gives us most likely an approximate idea of some points that were looked for in a good horse in the last century B.C.:— “Choose with like care the courser's generous breed, And from his birth prepare the parent steed. His colour mark, select the glossy bay, And to the white or dun prefer the grey. As yet a colt he stalks with lofty pace, And balances his limbs with flexile grace: First leads the way, the threatening torrent braves, And dares the unknown arch that spans the waves. Light on his airy crest his slender head, His belly short, his loins luxuriant spread: Muscle on muscle knots his brawny breast, No fear alarms him, nor vain shouts molest. But at the clash of arms, his ear afar Drinks the deep sound, and vibrates to the war: Flames from each nostril roll in gathered stream, His quivering limbs with restless motion gleam, O'er his right shoulder, floating full and fair, Sweeps his thick mane, and spreads its pomp of hair: Swift works his double spine, and earth around Rings to his solid hoof that wears the ground.” Though chariots were still in use among the Belgic tribes who inhabited the south-eastern portion of the island when, in 55 B.C., Cæsar invaded Britain, cavalry must have been coming into vogue with them, for we read that “no sooner were these tribes warned to be prepared for Cæsar's contemplated invasion than they sent forward cavalry and charioteers, which formed their chief arm in warfare.” The people of North Britain, however, still paid but little attention to the advice of the more intelligent among their chiefs that cavalry ought to be adopted and chariots entirely discarded, the principle of ultra-conservatism which remains one of the most marked characteristics of the British nation at the present day being apparently in force even in Cæsar's time. By this period the Gauls, as Cæsar soon found out, had become a nation composed almost wholly of knights. Yet whether the aboriginal horse of the first yeomanry of Kent that met Cæsar upon his landing belonged to the breed believed to have been imported by the Celts or Germans, or whether they were descendants of the horses known to have been largely bred when Hannibal's warlike expeditions into Spain, Gaul and Italy were over, is not known.