WILD HORSES. 299 



which can be regarded as indicating, even in the most obscure 

 manner, any recollection of these gigantic mammalia. 



The Wild Horses, which in ancient times inhabited Europe, 

 differed somewhat from our present breed, and have been 

 described as separate races by Professor Owen, under the 

 names of Equus fossilis and Equus spelceus. The latter is the 

 race which was largely used for food by the ancient inha- 

 bitants of the Bruniquel Cave in Dordogne.* It was rather 

 small in size, but appears to have resembled the true horse 

 more than the ass. Some naturalists have, indeed, been 

 disposed to believe that Europe contained two wild species 

 of the genus Equus during quaternary times. This opinion, 

 however, seems to depend on difference of size rather than 

 of form, and we know that the varieties of the horse differ 

 considerably in magnitude. 



Ekkehard, in the " Benedictiones ad mensas Ekkehardi 

 monachi Sangallensis," mentions "ferales equi" as existing 

 in the eleventh century in Switzerland. Lucas David also 

 (Eeuss. Chronik. Bd. ii. s. 121) alludes to the wild horse as 

 existing in 1240 in Eussia. Even at the beginning of the 

 seventeenth centry, Herberstein expressly says, " Eeras habet 

 Lithuania, prseter eas, quae in Germania referuntur, bisontes, 

 uros, alces, equos sylvestres" etc. 



Perhaps, however, these mediaeval wild horses were merely 

 tame ones which had escaped and bred in the extensive forests 

 of Central Europe. Indeed, the history of the horse in Europe 

 seems to have been much the same as in America. In the 

 one country as in the other, wild horses were at one time 

 frequent, and their remains are abundant. The Spanish con- 

 querors, however, found no trace or tradition of the horse at 

 the time of the discovery of America; and so also in the 

 Danish shell-mounds, and at the earlier Swiss lake villages, 



* Owen, Philosophical Transac- meyer, Beitriige zur Kenntniss der 

 tions, 1869, p. 535. See also Riiti- fossilen Pferclen. 



