■WILD HORSES. 253 



development. This plant also belongs to the Alliance Ricciaceae. 

 The three plants require naming. 



WILD HORSES. 



By Veterinary-Sukgeon J. H. Steel, A. V. D. 



(Read at the Society^s Meeting on 1st August 1887.) 



In bringing forward for consideration by the Society some 

 further questions about horses, I trust that I shall not be thought 

 to unduly force a hobby on my hearers. I feel assured that to a 

 large number of oia* members there is no lower animal more 

 interesting than the horse, and none about which details will be 

 more acceptable. Viewed from the high scientific standpoint no 

 animal-being, save perhaps man himself, could be studied with 

 more prospect of souud results and valuable generalisations. The 

 horse is to us the best representative of hoofed animals and 

 vegetable feeders, and to anatomists he is what Oscar Schmidt 

 describes in the following passage: — "The best known example of 

 this kind of an isolated form of: mammal is the horse and its 

 relatives, the genus equns. The descriptive zoologist places it by 

 the side of the two-hoofed animals. Yet the difference between 

 the one-toed horse and the two-toed oxen and stags remains 

 completely unexplained. Besides this the more perfect dentition of 

 the borse stands in sharp contrast with the reduced dentition of 

 most of the ruminants, which lack the upper incisors ; the only 

 point of connection would seem to be the camel, which again has 

 a much fuller deutition. Nevertheless, the horse remains a 

 phenomenon so peculiar within itself that descriptive zoology 

 has always classed the horse .iu the order of the two-hoofed 

 animals." 



This eveniug I want to consider wild horses, in some of their 

 practical and scientific bearings, and naturally the first question 

 which arises is, whether there is any sack creature as a wild horse? 

 This is rather a startling question when we consider that in 

 at least four out of the six continents horseg in a free state are 

 found living only to a very limited degree influenced by man 

 and most certainly not in a stat6 of domestication. The mustang 



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