92 THE HORSE AND ITS RELATIVES 



expressed the opinion that Eqims przevalskii is 

 certainly a distinct species, or race, although he 

 declined to commit himself to any definite view as 

 to its relationship to domesticated horses. In an 

 appendix, dealing with a paper by Professor T. 

 Noack, he admitted, however, that there is much 

 to be said in favour of the view that a connecting 

 link between the tarpan and some of the domesti- 

 cated breeds may have once existed, and that this 

 link may have been formed by one of the small 

 horses of the Stone Age. 



Before discussing the question as to whether the 

 tarpan ought to be regarded as a species by itself 

 or a race of the species typified by domesticated 

 horses, it will be well to devote a few paragraphs 

 to the Prehistoric horses of the Stone Age. 



Structurally the molar teeth of these Prehistoric 

 horses are of the same type as those of domesti- 

 cated horses ; but, nevertheless, in the early days of 

 palaeontological science a number of scientific names 

 were given to these fossil horses on the evidence 

 of isolated molar teeth and other specimens which 

 are no longer available for comparison, and, if they 

 were, would be quite insufficient for determining 

 the particular type of horse to which they pertained. 

 In 1832, for instance, a German palaeontologist, 

 Hermann von Meyer,^ proposed the name Equus 

 fossilis for a horse represented by remains from the 

 * PalcEologica, p. 79; Frankfurt-am-Maine, 1832. 



