EVOLUTION OF THE HORSE ii 



part. The Wild Horse of prehistoric Europe, a small race, 

 short-legged and shaggy-haired, was domesticated by man, a fact 

 that is known from the rude drawings scratched on bone or ivorj' 

 by men of the Xeolithic or Polished Stone Age. But the Domes- 

 tic Horse now in use is derived chiefly from the Asiatic race, cd- 

 though it is probable that in some breeds there is a considerable 

 strain of this shaggy, short-legged European race, and it is pos- 

 sible also that African races may have been domesticated and to 

 some extent mixed with the Asiatic species. The domesticated 

 Ass is a descendant of the African species. 



The Evolution' of the Horse. 



The history of the evolution of the Horse through the Ter- 

 tiary period or Age of Mammals affords the best known illustra- 

 tion in existence of the doctrine of evoluti( m by means of natural 

 selection and the adaptation of a race of animals to its environ- 

 ment. The ancestry of this family has been traced back to 

 nearl}- the beginning of the Tertiary without a single important 

 break. During this long period of time, estimated at nearly 

 three millions of years, these animals passed through important 

 changes in all parts of the body, but especially in the teeth and 

 feet, adapting them more and more perfectly to their particular 

 en\-ironment, namely the open plains of a great plateau region 

 with their scanty stunted herbage, which is the natural habitat 

 of the Horse. 



In the series of ancestors of the Horse we can trace every step 

 in the evolution of those marked ]ieculiarities of teeth and feet 

 which distinguish the modern Horse from an ancestor which so 

 little suggests a horse that, when its remains were first found 

 fortv vears ago, the animal was named by the great palaeontologist 

 Richard Owen, the Hyracoiheriuiu or "Coney-like Beast." Its 

 relation to the Horse was not at that time sus]3ected by Professor 

 Owen, and was recognized by scientific men only when several of 

 the intermediate stages between it and its modern descendant 

 had been discovered. On the other hand this first ancestor of the 

 Horse line is very difficult to distinguish from the contemporary 

 ancestors of tapirs and rhinoceroses, and indicates how all the 



