INTRODUCTION 7 



bones of 100,000 horses have been collected, which had 

 been cooked and eaten ; while an immense amount of 

 carvings, some in line-engraving and some in relief, 

 have been recovered and placed in the great Museum of 

 St. Germain, near Paris, and also figure in private 

 collections, largely through the indefatigable exertions of 

 the late Vicomte de Lastic and the recently deceased 

 M. Piette. 



In common with other mammals the evolution of the horse 

 may therefore be summed up in the following table (see p. 8), 

 millions of years being consumed in the process of ascend- 

 ing from the lowest epoch to the date of the most recent 

 winner of the Epsom Derby, or the First Prize Shire Horse 

 at the Koyal Agriculture Show ; though undoubtedly all are 

 links in one progressive chain of development from a 

 lower to a higher form. The table should be studied 

 from the bottom, working up from the Pre-Cambrian Age, 

 the period of the Torridonian Sandstone, to the Palaeo- 

 lithic or Upper Glacial epoch, the links of which are 

 superimposed upon each other, like the different layers of 

 a sandwich. 



The use of the horse by the Cave-dwellers was assuredly 

 for food. It was probably a long time before they made any 

 endeavour to utilise its services, but that they eventually 

 did so is clearly indicated on some of the carvings discovered 

 by M. Piette. Twisted thongs were placed round the head 

 and muzzle in the fashion of a bridle, or halter, but whether 

 any sort of bit was used is uncertain. In all probability 

 the horse was primarily controlled by pressure with the 

 nose-band, which latter may have been supplemented by a 

 hard material such as bone, or wood, similar to the metal 

 cavessons frequently employed instead of bits, in the 

 Peninsula, at the present day. When man takes any 

 species of animal in hand he invariably contrives to modify 

 some of its characteristics to suit his wants, and it is likely 

 the Cave-dwellers asserted their influence, and the horse as 

 used by them changed somewhat in type from what Nature, 

 free and unfettered, would have continued to produce ; but 

 it has been left to very modern times to originate and 



