dollars, which made quite a sensation among the Kennebec farmers who had any stock of the same sort. I do not recollect the rate of speed this horse showed, but a mile in three minutes was then considered wonderful, and probably this was about his rate. Other horses of the stock were soon brought out as fast travelers. I remember a friend of mine showing me some young horses he was training, and I rode with him after several of them. They were _natural trotters_, and would do _nothing but trot_, even under severe applications of the whip. But I think the second generation from Mr. Hayward’s horse were generally faster trotters than the first. They were also generally handsomer horses, not so rough looking. Nearly all the horses of this stock which have acquired a reputation in Massachusetts, New York, etc., as fast trotters, had not more than a quarter of the blood of the horse that Mr. Hayward took to Maine, and consequently had not more than an eighth of the blood of imported Messenger. “The mares that produced these horses were of no particular blood. Various stallions had been kept in that section. Morgans from New Hampshire and Vermont, with an occasional change to the French Canadians, and now and then a quarter or half bred horse from New York or New Jersey.” This excellent communication from Mr. Howard is especially valuable, as the conclusions drawn by an accurate and competent observer from a personal acquaintance with the original horse and his progeny. There are some inferences, however, that may be drawn from Mr. Howard’s letter that would be unjust to this distinguished animal. His general coarse appearance, in connection with which Mr. H. says, “he hardly looked like a half bred horse,” was a prominent feature in the family. Mambrino, a very high-bred son of old Messenger, was very coarse, and the same remark was often made about him. The quantity and length of his coat in the winter of his old age are not conclusive against his pretensions to a large share of good and pure blood. They are the results oftentimes of neglect and ill health. It is somewhere stated that the famous Sir Archy before he died looked exceedingly shaggy, his hair being fully three inches long. Mr. Howard expresses the opinion that “the second generation from Mr. Hayward’s horse were generally faster trotters than the first.” In many instances this, no doubt, is true, for it would be altogether contrary to the uniform laws which govern these things if development and use did not strengthen and intensify the instinct to trot in successive generations. If Mr. Howard is right, and we do not doubt he is, the increased capacity did not grow out of the dilution of the blood, but out of the strengthening of the instinct by culture and use. At the time Mr. Howard made this remark he evidently did not know that the famous old-time trotters, Daniel D.