IX 



THE ANCESTRY OF THE HORSE 



"Said the little Eohippus 

 I am going to be a horse 

 And on my middle finger-nails 

 To run my earthly course." 



The American whose ancestors came over in 

 the " Mayflower " has a proper pride in the 

 length of the hne of his descent. The Enghsh- 

 man whose genealogical tree sprang up at the 

 time of William the Conqueror has, in its eight 

 centuries of growth, still larger occasion for 

 pluming himself on the antiquity of his family. 

 But the pedigree of even the latter is a thing 

 of yesterday when compared with that of the 

 horse, whose family records, according to Pro- 

 fessor Osborn, reach backward for something 

 like 2,000,000 years. And if, as we have been 

 told, " it is a good thing to have ancestors, but 

 sometimes a httle hard on the ancestor," in this 



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