THE MULTIPLE ORIGIN OF HORSES AND PONIES. 441 



As already indicated, the men of the early stone age have left ns 

 drawings of some four or fiv^e diilerent kinds of horses, some with 

 large heads and stout limbs, some with fine heads and slender limbs, 

 some with nearly straight croup and a well-set-on tail, others with 

 rounded quarters and the root of the tail far below the level of the 

 croup. Drawings made at the present day will be of little use some 

 centuries hence in providing an answer to the question, How many 

 species of horses existed in Europe at the l)eginning of the twentieth 

 century? They will confuse rather than enlighten future inquirers, 

 because for several generations breeders of horses, like breeders of 

 cattle and dogs, have with the help of selection and isolation succeeded 

 in creating numerous artificial strains. Is there any reason for sup- 

 posing the evidence ali'orded by the prehistoric drawings is more valu- 

 able to us than recent drawings will be to our successors thousands of 

 years hence, should they desire to ascertain how many species of horses 

 Britons possessed at the end of the nineteenth century ? That depends 

 on whether in Palaeolithic times the horse was domesticated in Europe. 



It is extremely probable that the men of the early stone age had 

 now and again tame horses, just as nowadays we have at times tame 

 zebras, but it is most unlikely that they had herds of horses which 

 they systematically bred and reared as stockmen now breed and rear 

 cattle.' 



That the domestication of the horse as now understood was not 

 attempted in Palaeolithic times may be inferred from the fact that the 

 majority of the horses in the Solutre bone mounds were from five to 

 seven years old. Had horses been bred for food, as we nowadaj^s 

 breed cattle, young individuals would have been most abundant at 

 Solutre. 



If it is admitted that the engravings on the walls of caves and on 

 pieces of horn fairly accurately represent aninuils which actually 

 existed at the end of the ice age, and if it is also admitted that the 

 creation of new varieties by artificial selection was never attempted 

 until at the earliest the arrival of the Neoliths, it follows that in post- 

 Glacial as in Pleistocene times there were several perfectly distinct 

 wild species of horses in Europe. 



For some reason or other it has hitherto been very connnonly 

 assumed that, as in recent times the wild striped horses of South 

 Africa — the quagga and zebras — have been gradually supplanted 

 by occidental or oriental domesticated horses, the wild hoi-ses of 

 Europe were gradually displaced by domesticated varieties intro- 

 duced by the Neoliths. It seems to me quite unnecessary to assume 

 that the indigenous varieties so long familiar to the Palaeolithic 

 inhabitants were exterminated. 



The advent of the Neoliths, instead of inq)lying the extei-mination 



