To return, however, to the reign of George II., though we find little bearing on the business of the Turf to be gleaned from its records, it introduces us to the great forefathers of our thorough blood, and stirs one of the most interesting questions in our domestic natural history--the problem of the seed or origin of the English thorough-bred horse. A brief search through the stud-book will convince the inquirer that, almost without exception, our great racers were and are descendants of the Darley and Godolphin Arabians: I use the latter term merely because its conventionality now identifies those celebrated animals. They were both, as has been stated, imported in this reign: the question that I would here investigate applies equally to each, but, for the sake of simplifying it, I will treat it with reference to the latter only. “That he was a genuine Arabian,” says the stud-book, “his excellence as a sire is deemed sufficient proof;” a little further on we read, “It is remarkable that there is not a _superior_ horse now on the Turf without a cross of the Godolphin Arabian, neither has there been for several years past.” The probable date of his arrival in this country was 1725, or thereabouts. Hundreds of Arabs had preceded him as sires, their introduction for that purpose having been a very general speculation from the time of Charles I. That the indigenous island breed had thereby been rendered good service, there can be no doubt; but that the Turf derived any signal advantages from the importations is more than problematical.