BOMBAY NATURAL IIISTORY SOCIETY. 



these great nations are found horses which, like their owners, have by 

 less conscious efforts of artificial selection, indeed almost by survival 

 of the fittest, become typical light cavalry horses, hardy, active, fleet, 

 and fearless. The varieties of the Arab along Northern Africa and 

 Southern Asia, from Algeria to Hyderabad (Deccan), the Cossack horse 

 in Southern Russia, and the Turcoman in Central Asia, and extending 

 southwards into India, are the semi-natural races now referred to. 

 Further east we come to the zone of ponies of Indo-China and 

 Australasia, of which the Burma or ' ' Pegu " is an example — an 

 essentially natural race of great hardihood, robust physique, but 

 small size and indomitable pluck. Australia, the Americans, and the 

 Capo show us the phenomenon of horses becoming highly specialized 

 by the combined influences of new climate, special management, 

 and artificial selection. Compare the Waler with the English horse, 

 whether in shape, temper, or suitability for special work, and you 

 will see how special influences have affected the race of horses in 

 the colonies quite as much as they have the men. The most con- 

 spicuous example of the effects of artificial selection on the horse is 

 the American Trotter, a grand breed with beauties of i( make " and 

 powers wholly its own, developed by Yankee energy and skill from 

 the English thorough-bred race-horse. But I must not allow my- 

 self to be carried away by this fascinating branch of my subject. 

 I must now point out to you that the working horse of North Ame- 

 rica, the pampas semi-wild horse of South America, the valuable 

 *' Waler/' and the horses of New Zealand and the Cape are examples 

 of diffusion of the European horse throughout the world, principally 

 the outcome of the last half century. What an extraordinary 

 expansion of the area occupied by the horse! This would prove an 

 interesting study for a member of the Statistical Society, but 

 would be out of place here. 



I go on to the horses of the far distant past. Cuvier used to say 

 that from a fragment of bone he could build up the skeleton of an 

 animal, and he could actually do so, to an extent. A veteran 

 savant of Great Britain, the illustrious Owen, has informed us 

 from fossils what the horse of the past was like. I exhibit an 

 enlarged copy of his diagram, from which it will be seen that his 

 materials to work with were a few bones and teeth. He traces 

 clearly the process by which the three-toed horse became the one- 

 toed horse of the present day, and gradually lost the first molar in 

 the course of time occupied in these changes. It is insisted that 



