202 BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY. 



other mammals in the present day can show so distinct or regular a 

 pedigree as the horse. " 



Teratology, the study of so-called monstrosities, gives us some 

 curious results which are worth a short consideration in this con- 

 nection. Horses are not uncommonly born with three toes on one 

 or more of their feet. An example of this " recurrence to original 

 type " is shown in the diagram now exhibited. Horses of low 

 breed are especially liable to this peculiarity. History tells us 

 that Bucephalus, the celebrated charger of Alexander the Great, 

 was a Hipparion, i.e. had three toes on each foot. The tomb of 

 this horse is on the north-western frontier of India and is well 

 known. Whether the bones of Bucephalus still lie in it or no I am 

 not in a position to state ; but if antiquarians at any time get an 

 opportunity of exploring the conteuts of this tomb, I trust that any 

 equine remains will be submitted to examination by a competent 

 hippologist. I also trust that the desideratum will be made widely 

 known, in order that, if they be not already lost, the bones of Buce- 

 phalus be preserved with due honour. The results of Teratology 

 go further — they show us that at times horses cloven-footed, like oxen, 

 occur; that horses are sometimes found with small frontal horns; and 

 that frequently the limb bones of the horse very closely resemble 

 those of the ox. Natural and ordinary development shows that the 

 fibula of the horse enters into formation of the hock joint, and that 

 the ulna extends down to the knee, and these are facts which few 

 zoologists know. I once had a humerus of the horse, of the large 

 black Belgian breed used by undertakers in England, which even 

 well-informed students in veterinary anatomy used to constantly 

 mistake for that of a bullock. These anatomical and teratological 

 facts by no means alter our accepted ideas as to the degree of rela- 

 tionship of the horse and the ox, but they are indications of similarity 

 in function ; in plain words, that the horse and ox, since they walk 

 and run to an extent in the same way, have their limbs very similar. 

 They further give colour to the suspicionheld by veterinary anatomists, 

 in opposition to the views at present generally accepted among 

 zoologists, that in the days before the Anchitherium, fusion between 

 the third and the fourth fingers occurred to produce the large central 

 toe of the horse. This heresy will, no doubt, give a shock to some 

 of my hearers who have been led to believe that the functional digit 

 of the horse is No. 3, enormously enlarged, and that all the other 

 digits have disappeared or arc in course of disappearance. I 



