260 BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY. 



from the earliest times migration of equine animals have taken 

 place; it is supposed that in the period of the early tertiaries such a 

 migration occurred to America, and that there was also a very early 

 migration from Central Asia in other directions, as to the western 

 limits of Europe. Doubtless also early human migrations influenced 

 the spread of the horse in such a way that even the special races of 

 different countries have from time to time had constant admixture 

 of foreigen blood both in the pre-historic and historic periods. Yet 

 we cannot believe that so obvious a process as domesticating horses 

 did not take place simultaneously in different countries and so act as 

 an important factor in the production of local breeds. All methods 

 of the present day are but modifications of those of the past; in this, 

 as in other matters, '' there is no new thing under the sun." I 

 cannot conceive that given men of a number of different races with 

 horses to hand and constantly killed as food, it would occur only to 

 the Mongolian to endeavour to domesticate so tractable an animal ! 

 Martin Duncan shows that the domesticated horse was first known 

 in the Swiss Lake period, and must have been driven in the bronze 

 period, for brouze bits have been found iu France and Italy. He 

 quotes Hamilton Smith's conclusion that the first domestication of 

 the post-diluvium horse was achieved in Central Asia, or commenced 

 nearly simultaneously in the several regions where wild animals of 

 the horse form existed; the latter seems the most tenable view. 



With regard to climatic and physical conditions under which wild, 

 horses live, the Steppes of Tartary are described as great treeless 

 plains at considerable elevation. k The Kyang inhabits the Thibetan 

 plateaux some 15,000 to 16,000 feet above the sea-level, and the 

 Mongolian wild horse of Prejevalsky is found on the plains of 

 Tsaidam, some 1,700 feet below the Kokonor Stepp. In Bolivia 

 the llanos are described by Spence as a series of enormous level 

 tracts watered by navigable rivers and covered by verdant turf, 

 where vast numbers of mules, hoi*ses and asses pasture. These 

 tracts are subject to floods during which the horses take refuge on 

 table-lands, which form, as it were, islands in the flood, and the 

 mares (with their foals) may be seen swimming about in the water 

 browsing on the tops of the long grass projecting over the water. 

 Wide plains of pasture, undulating and even hilly, are suitable for 

 the wild horse, running streams and perennial grass are advantage- 

 ous to him, but he at times undergoes great straits both for food 

 and water. The arguments with regard to th6 nature of the land 



