Tarpan 281 



a little work published in 1890 under the title of Ucbcr Tiindroi i/iul 

 Steppe//. 



Pallas's description of these animals, as given in volume i. of his Zoc- 

 graphia Rossc-As/c/t/eci., is so excellent that it mav be translated at length : — 



" The wild horses," he writes, " roam over the steppes of Great 

 Tartary and Mongolia, from the Dnieper to the Altai, and through the 

 whole ot Central Asia ... in small troops. The majority are of a grey 

 roan or pale grey colour, with the mane, the dorsal streak, and the tail 

 reddish brown, the muzzle whitish, and the neighbourhood of the mouth 

 blackish. In size they are smaller than the average domesticated horse, 

 but the head is larger, as are the ears, the summits of which are bent 

 back in a sickle-like torm, while the limbs are thinner. The torehead is 

 convex above the eyes, with a whorl in the hair between them. The 

 small hoots are nearly cylindrical. The mane extends from the space 

 between the ears '^ as far back as the shoulder-blades, and is of moderate 

 length and halt upright. In winter the coat is long, ragged, and on the 

 back waved ; the tail being of medium length. Newly-born foals can be 

 easily tamed, but the adults are quite untamable. These horses are 

 wonderfully swift, and, when to leeward, do not allow human beings to 

 approach within a long distance. . . . They frequent sunny, undulating 

 steppes, avoiding forest and bare mountainous districts." 



To this excellent description it should be added that, owing to crossing 

 with horses escaped trom captivity, the colour of some members of the 

 troops ot tarpans differs more or less markedly from the typical grey roan. 



In Pallas's time tarpan were to be met with on the steppes of the 

 Volga and Urals, but for fully a century they have disappeared from those 

 tracts and have been steadily driven farther and farther into Central Asia. 

 Even there, according to Przewalski, true wild horses are only to be met 

 with in comparatively small troops, seldom of more than fifty head each. 



^ Eyes in the original. 

 2 O 



