Some of the ponies recently brought south from Shetland have increased so much in size that, if otherwise eligible, they could not be registered in the ‘Shetland Pony Stud-Book’—_i.e._, they are now over 42 inches at the withers.[F9] The majority of these tall ponies, however, are piebalds or skewbalds, which in make and other respects resemble Iceland ponies,—if their history were traced, a piebald Iceland pony would probably be found amongst their recent ancestors. It is not surprising that young cross-bred Shetland ponies increase considerably in size when grazed on rich lowland pastures, or that now and again a pure-bred pedigree pony should grow above the recognised standard; but these exceptions only serve to prove the rule, now widely recognised by breeders, that pure-bred Shetlanders remain small however favourable their surroundings. Seeing that in the majority of pedigree ponies the dwarfing has gone so far that the metacarpals are actually shorter than in the remote three-toed Miocene ancestors, what is surprising is that there is not an immediate response to the stimuli which genial surroundings and abundant food imply. [F9] In all probability these ponies would have measured over 40 inches had they remained in Shetland. Some 500 years ago a female rabbit and her young were turned out on the small island of Porto Santo near Madeira. In course of time this island was so overrun with rabbits that it was for a time abandoned as a settlement. As the rabbits increased in number they dwindled in size, became reddish above and grey beneath, and lost the black marking from the points of the ears and the tip of the tail. Some of these Porto Santo rabbits which reached the London Zoological Gardens in 1861 reacquired the colour and markings of the common wild rabbit within four years. The Porto Santo rabbits having recovered the ancestral colours soon after reaching Europe, it might have been anticipated that the Shetland pony would recover some of his lost inches when taken to the south of England—to the area containing the remains of the 12-to 13-hands wild races from which small British breeds have mainly sprung. There is, however, no longer any doubt that the small size is, as a rule, maintained however favourable the surroundings. Why the Sheltie fails to respond to the growth stimuli which favourable surroundings so abundantly provide it is extremely difficult to explain. In the language of the day, one can only say that the limbs have forgotten how to grow beyond a certain size, and add that this loss of “memory” may be the result of breeding from the smallest individuals regardless of their consanguinity. In 1892 Mr Christopher Wilson, in a letter to Mr Meiklejohn, then in charge of the Bressay Stud, said: “With regard to the Shetland ponies, your great object is to keep them small.... There is no class of animal to which inbreeding can be better applied, as all you will lose by inbreeding is size, which is what you want....