“The piebald Cameron cost £24, and although he rather spoilt the colours, he introduced a better shape, a smaller head, and decidedly truer action. Odin, of the same colour, also kept up the form; Thor got them nearly all skewbalds like himself; and Lord Minimus was a grey and sire of grey beauties. They are shifted from island to island as the grass suits, and require the most careful drafting to keep them at nine hands. Mr Balfour has about 40 in all, of which the majority are duns and creams; and they are always broken at three, and made very tractable in a week. Her Majesty has a pair of them; and some of the more fancy colours were once picked up by Ducrow.”[35] Colonel Balfour, whose enterprise is referred to by “The Druid,” was probably the first to attempt breed improvement in the Shetland pony. His grandson, in “The Druid’s” day, was in all likelihood the first breeder who made a systematic and deliberate effort to accentuate the small size which the poverty of nature and man had already fixed as a breed-characteristic; and his example has not been very widely followed in Shetland. It cannot, in fact, be said that, on the whole, any clear idea dominates the plans or purposes of pony breeders in the Islands. Individual breeders here and there have pursued an enlightened course in endeavouring to improve their herds; and it is natural that their choice of breeding stock should have been determined largely by the nature of the commercial demand. They have thus been led to concentrate their attention mainly on the production of animals with the weight of body and strength of bone which have been demanded by British and foreign buyers. On the other hand, the conditions of existence in Shetland have greatly contributed to the preservation of an active type of pony such as can gain its livelihood on the poor and mossy pastures of the Islands.