6 THE HORSE 



horses may have been of a uniform colour, "a foxy -red" 

 in hue ; while the Miocene horses were either striped 

 or spotted. No doubt at that period horses were 

 dwelling in vastly different areas, some inhabiting bush 

 and some open plains, and their colouring would assimilate 

 to their surroundings. Stripes appeared first on the legs, 

 as are sometimes still seen in dun horses, and then a 

 dorsal band and shoulder stripes followed, though the 

 markings were faint and ill-defined, until, as time ran 

 its course, the zebras developed their characteristic coat. 



Caves containing vast quantities of fossil remains of 

 early quadrupeds have been discovered and investigated 

 in many parts of the world ; and it is likely that our 

 own limestone ranges, whose vast fissures and caverns 

 underground give no external indication of their exist- 

 ence, may reward future investigators with rich dis- 

 coveries which will throw more light on prehistoric 

 ages. 



In England, " Kent's Cavern " at Torquay, the 

 Creswell Cave and the " Kirkdale Cave," in Yorkshire, 

 have been prolific of fossil treasures. North America has 

 provided remains of the " Protohippus " in the Later 

 Eocene, in which the splint-bones are fully developed, 

 terminating inferiorly in small though perfect toes, a 

 contemporary of the Hipparion ; the Miocene " Anchi- 

 therium," the crowns of whose teeth are quite short 

 and free from cement ; and the " Pliohippus " in the 

 Upper Pliocene, with shorter cheek teeth ; while South 

 America has the " Onohippidium Munizi," found in the 

 superficial deposits of Argentina, and characterised by the 

 great length of the nasal slit, which extends as far as 

 the eye-socket. In the light of these fossil remains, it 

 is curious that when America was discovered no living 

 horses existed on that continent. It is the great 

 caverns in the Pyrenees, and the Landes, and the cele- 

 brated cavern of La Madeleine in the Dordogne, which 

 have yielded the great wealth of carvings and other 

 evidences of the Cave-men. It has been stated that in 

 one locahty in France alone — Solutre, near Macon — the 



