EQUINE FOSSILS. — Lei ijy. 101 



Prof. Buckland''' and Sir John Richardsonf have described remains of the Horse, dis- 

 covered in association with those of the elephant, moose, rein-deer, and musk-ox, in the ice 

 cliffs of Eschscholtz bay, Arctic America. 



In the United States, remains of the Horse, chiefly consisting of teeth, have been noticed 

 by Drs. Mitchell, J Harlan, § and DeKay,|| but these gentlemen have neither given descrip- 

 tions nor figures by which to identify the specimens. Some of the latter are stated to 

 have been found in the vicinity of Neversink Hills, New Jersey; others in the excavation 

 for the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, near Georgetown, District of Columbia ; and some in 

 the later Tertiary deposit on Neuse river, in the vicinity of Newborn, North Carolina. 

 Dr. DeKay, in speaking of such remains, says: "They resemble tho.se of the common 

 Horse, but from their size, apparently belonged to a larger animal;" and he refers them to 

 a species with the name of Equus major. 



Dr. R. W. Gibbes** has given information of the discovery of teeth of the Horse in the 

 Pleiocene deposit of Darlington, South-Carolina ; in Richland District, of the same State ; 

 in Skidaway Island, Georgia ; and on the banks of the Potomac river. He further 

 observes that he obtained the tooth of a Horse, from Eocene marl, on the Ashley river, 

 South-Carolina, but the researches of Prof Holmesf-f indubitably indicate the specimen to 

 have been an accidental occupant of that formation. 



Specimens of isolated teeth, and a few bones of the Horse, from the Post-Pleiocene and 

 recent deposits of this country, east of the Mississippi river, have frequently been 

 submitted to my inspection. Many of these I have unhesitatingly pronounced to be relics 

 of the domestic horse, though I feel persuaded that many remains of an extinct species are 

 undistinguishable from the recent one. 



Whether more than one extinct species is indicated among the numerous specimens of 

 teeth I have had the opportunity of examining, I have been unable positively to determine, 

 but the testimony inclines me to suspect the existence of at least two species. One of these 

 was apparently about the size of the ordinary varieties of the domestic horse, and possessed 

 molar teeth, not more complicated in the arrangement of their enamel than in the latter. 

 The second species was about the size of the English dray horse, and possessed molar teeth, 

 with the enamel much more complexly plicated than in any recent species of Equus. 



These two species, for which the names heading the present chapter have been proposed, 

 appear to have held the same relation to each other, in size and anatomical constitution, as 

 the Equus primigeniiis and E. plicidens, of Europe. 



The two species are, however, not always readily separated from each other, for their 

 remains frequently exhibit such an approximation of characters, that it is often difficult to 

 say to which they actually belong. 



The specimens of molar teeth of the Horse, which I formerly attributed to the extinct 



*Beechey's Voyag-e to the Pacific, 1831. Appendix, 595. || Zoology New- York, pt. 1, Mammalia, 108. 



f Zoology of the Voyage of the Herald, 1854, It. Equus fossilis, Eichardson. 



J Catalogue of Organic Remain.?, 1826, 1, 8. **Proc. Amer. Assoc, 1850, 66. 



§ Med. and Phys. Researches, 1835, 26T. ft Ibidem, 68. 



