White. — The Horse : a Study in Philology. 211 



Art. XVI. — The Horse: a Study in Philology. 



By Taylor White. 



[Read before the Hawke's Bay Philosophical Institute, 13th October, 



1902.] 



It is the opinion of those who have not attempted to trace the 

 history of the horse into the fan-back period long anterior to 

 oral tradition that this animal was originally to be found in 

 the more arid parts of Asia ; but of late years, owing to the 

 study by geologists and others of osteological remains, we 

 have certain proof that horses were fairly numerous in a feral 

 state in Europe, and even in the British Isles, so long ago as 

 the time when the man living there at the same period had 

 not yet become possessed of more useful tools and weapons of 

 defence than wooden clubs and unpolished stone implements 

 — the man of the Palaeolithic age. We have well-authenticated 

 evidence, by the finding of the bones of horses among those 

 of other animals, that man then used the horse as an article 

 of food. 



Quite recently MM. Capitan and Breuil discovered many 

 drawings on the walls of caves at Combarelles, in the neigh- 

 bourhood of Eyzies (Dordogne), in France. Among these 109 

 drawings were some fairly good representations of that mon- 

 ster elephant the mammoth, with its shaggy coat of hair and 

 immense upward-curved tusks. The correct drawings of the 

 mammoth among the other drawings in these caves gives us 

 data as to the approximate geological age or period of time 

 at which such drawings were made, for these cave-dwelling 

 people certainly drew the likenesses of animals then living. 



The reindeer, which at the present time is only found on 

 the confines of the arctic regions, was also among those de- 

 picted. This animal is spoken of by Caesar as the rheno, 

 found in Gaul at the time of the Eoman invasion, and it was 

 probably killed off by some infectious disease at a subsequent 

 time, or possibly by an insect plague. The Laplanders of to- 

 day always move their reindeer herds from the coast to the 

 uplands in the interior at the coming of spring to save them 

 from the attacks of insect plagues, notably that of the bot or 

 warble ny (CEstrits boois). One writer speaks of the reindeer 

 being so infested by the large grubs of this fly under their 

 skin that they may be heard to fall on the ground when the 

 beast gives a vigorous shake. This, of course, could only 

 occur at a time when the grubs had reached maturity and so 

 were ripe to leave their host and retire underground, there 

 to remain until by a further stage of development they were 



