THE HORSE 1081 



about the year 1000 the monks of St. Gall were in the habit of using the flesh of 

 wild horses as an article of diet, while so late as 1316 a document alludes to their 

 existence in Westphalia. Moreover, Rosslin, in the year 1593, states that wild 

 horses, which were more shy and difficult to approach than stags, were found in the 

 Vosges, and \vere captured and tamed by the inhabitants of those districts. In all 

 these cases it is, however, quite probable that these horses were feral rather than truly 

 wild; that is to say, that they were derived from tamed races which had again taken 

 to a wild life. This view is rendered the more probable from the circumstance 

 that, during the historic period the greater part of Western Europe had become a 

 forest-clad region quite different from the open steppes which we have reason to be- 

 lieve were the original home of the horse; but it is not impossible that a certain 

 number of troops of wild horses might have adapted themselves to the changed con- 

 ditions of their surroundings, and have lived on to the Middle Ages. 



Although at present the tarpan, or wild horse of the steppes, is 

 confined to Central Asia, there is evidence that in the time of Pallas 

 {circa 1760) its range extended westward to the region of the Urals and Volga. 

 This explorer states that at that period the tarpan abounded in the steppes of Tar- 

 tary and Mongolia, from the Dnieper to the Altai, and thence throughout Central 

 Asia, in small droves seldom exceeding fifty head. The majority are of a reddish- 

 gray (dun) or pale gray color; but from intermixture with individuals which have 

 escaped from captivity, these colors are not invariable. In the pure-bred race, the 

 mane, a streak along the back, and the tail, are reddish brown, while the nose is 

 whitish, and the rest of the muzzle nearly black. They are smaller than the aver- 

 age domestic horse, and have thinner limbs, larger heads, with a convex profile, 

 and longer ears which at their summits are bent backward in a sickle-like manner. 

 The hoofs are small and cylindrical; and the mane, which extends far on to the 

 forehead and backward on to the shoulders, is comparatively short, thick, and half 

 erect. In winter the coat is long, rough, and shaggy, and the bushy tail rather 

 short. Young colts are easily tamed, but the adults are utterly intractable. Tarpan 

 exhibit wonderful speed, and strenously avoid the neighborhood of man. They 

 frequent the open steppes, and are never found in forests and mountainous 

 districts. 



Since the time of Pallas the tarpan has been steadily driven back to the more 

 remote parts of Central Asia, where it was met with by Colonel Prejevalski. The 

 troops there are under the leadership of an old stallion, and they always move 

 against the wind, with their ears and nostrils alert to detect the least trace of 

 danger. During the \vinter the tarpan scrapes away the snow with its front hoofs 

 in order to reach the scanty herbage beneath;, and its coat at this season becomes so 

 thick as to form a kind of thin fur. 



It has been frequently stated that tarpan are feral rather than truly wild horses. 

 This opinion is, however, vehemently opposed by Dr. Nehring, who believes that 

 in these animals we have the last survivors of the ancient prehistoric wild horses 

 of Europe, which have been more or less modified by an infusion of domesticated 

 blood through the intermixture of individuals escaped from captivity. If Darwin be 

 right in concluding that the primitive horse was more or less striped, it is possible 



