

793 



lean striped primitive stock, to which our horsed 



Still occasionally I'C\ fit.' 



Whether the actual species tlius alluded to i- 

 still living in tin- wild state i- -\t n-nn-l\ uncei lain ; 

 indeed it i.s held by many competent judges that no 

 primitively wild honei now exist, the herds of 

 liorses that roam over the Russian steppes ln-in^ 

 snppused to l>e the descendant^ of animals widen 

 were once domesticated, and have relapsed into the 

 feral state, as is known to he the cawe with the 

 mustang iif Smith America. 



I'lie Tarjian, or wild horse of southern IJn-sja, is 

 a small animal, with thin, hut strong, IOBff*jolo(ed 

 le.us, loutish thin neck, and comparatively thick 

 lie.nl, pointed ears directed forwards, and small 

 \icious eyes. The coat in summer is close, short, 

 and wavy, especially l>ehind ; in winter it is thick 

 and long, forming a kind of beard under the chin ; 

 the mane thick and bushy, the tail of moderate 

 length ; the colour generally pale brown or yellowish 

 in summer, almost white in winter. It is found 

 in southern Russia, but (according to Radde) is 

 absent from Central Asia, even from the north of 

 the Gobi, where the dziggetai is found. It lives in 

 large herds, often numbering several hundreds, 

 subdivided into little groups or families, each pre- 

 Mded over by a stallion, who protects his retinue 

 valiantly, but permits no irregularities in their 

 behaviour ; young horses keep at a distance on the 

 outskirts of the herd until they are able to under- 

 take the cares of a family for themselves. The 

 stallions are ever on the alert with nose and ear to 

 detect the approach of danger, of which they give 

 notice by a loud neigh, upon hearing which the 

 whole herd takes to flight, sometimes disappearing 

 as if by magic from the crafty manner in which 

 they take advantage of irregularities in the ground. 

 The story that they protect themselves by forming 

 a ring with heads directed inwards has no founda- 

 tion in fact, although the stallions will defend the 

 mares and foals from impending attack. The 

 stallions fight vigorously among themselves with 

 teeth and hoofs, and each as he attains maturity 

 must win his position in the herd by a series of 

 duels. They present all the appearance of truly 

 wild animals, and are regarded^ as such by the 

 Tartars and Cossacks, who destroy them on all 

 possible opportunities, because they are useless for 

 taming purposes, and because they inflict consider- 

 able damage upon these horse-rearing communities 

 by devouring their stores of hciy and enticing away 

 their mares. 



The South American wild horses, known as 

 ' cimmarones ' or ' mustangs,' are reported by Azara 

 to be the descendants of some half-dozen individuals 

 which were left to their own resources when the 

 town of Buenos Ayres was abandoned about 1535. 

 When in 1580 the town was reinstated, they were 

 found to have increased to a very considerable 

 number. They are of the same size as the domestic 

 horses, but with thicker heads and legs, and longer 

 necks and ears ; all are brownish or blackish in 

 colour. Their social system is the same as that of 



the tarpans. They pn ed in Indian tile, leaving 



no gaps in the series, and are avoided by travellers 

 owing to their attempts to entice tame horses into 

 their company, not unfrequently with success. 

 The Indians on the pampas eat the mares and foals, 

 and also capture a certain num)>er in order to tame 

 them ; but the Euroj>ean8 make no use of them, 

 except perhaps to kill one when fuel is scarce in 

 order to replenish the camp-fire with its marrow. 

 The accounts given by travellers of these animals 

 differ in many important particulars. 



The subject of the horse's paces is one which has 

 given rise to much controversy. It has been main- 

 tained that horses in a wild state use only the 

 walk and gallop, the trot and others being the 



results of education. Thin question can hardly be 

 regarded as settled even now, for the fact that 

 quite young fouls have been observed to trot Ix-side 

 i In i i dams i- i- \plieahle a* an iiwtance of heredity. 



Six well-marked pace* may !* distinguished in 

 the movements of domesticated horse* the walk, 

 the amble, the rack or pace, the trot, the muter, 

 and the gallop. The study of the precise move 

 merits ,,|" the different limbs in carrying out tli--e 

 paces i.s very diHicnlt, especially in the cane of 

 those in which the motion is rapid. Marey, the 

 French physiologist, was the first to attempt a 

 rigorous analysis of these movement* by meant* of 

 apparatus. He attached to the horses' hoofs small 

 elastic bags, connected by tnlws with pointers, 

 which made marks upon a revolving cylinder. 

 When any one of the feet touched the ground the 

 bag was compressed, and the pointer instantly made 

 a corresponding mark upon t'ic cylinder. Very valu- 

 able results were obtained by this method of study ; 

 but they need not be further detailed here, as they 

 have been superseded by the beautiful photographic 

 investigations of Muybridge. In these experiment)* 

 the horse was made to proceed along a track in 

 front of a row of twelve or twenty-four cameras, so 

 arranged that, as the animal passed in succession 

 before each of them, an instantaneous photograph 

 of it was obtained. These pictures furnish the 

 means of analysing the various paces, as the 

 exact attitude of the horse is shown at very short 

 intervals of time. In the case of an ordinary walk 

 the horse has always two and sometimes three feet 

 on the ground at once. The order of the succession 

 of the footfalls is as follows : left hind, left fore, 

 right hind, right fore ; furthermore the horse is 

 alternately supported by the two feet of the same 

 side (laterals) and by a hind and a fore foot of 

 different sides ( diagonals ); when the animal rests 

 upon the laterals, the suspended feet appear in a 

 side view between the supporting feet ; wnen upon 

 the diagonals, the suspended feet hang out one in 

 front of and the other behind the supporting feet. 

 These rules furnish the means of testing the 

 accuracy of artistic representations of walking 

 horses. The amble is a rapid walk, the length of 

 time the feet rest upon the ground being reduced 

 so that the body is often supported upon only one 

 foot, and generally only on two. The rack (called 

 in America the ' pace' ) is a step in which the lat- 

 erals move synchronously with each other. A 

 horse performing this action may be compared to 

 two men running one behind the other and keeping 

 step. In America there is another gait called the 

 ' rack' to which saddle-horses are trained. It is a 

 modified trot. The trot is a pace characterised by 

 the nearly synchronous movement of the diagonal 

 limbs, the movement being rarely quite simultane- 

 ous. It has often been maintained that a horse in 

 trotting has always at least one foot in contact with 

 the ground. So far, however, is this from being the 

 case that a fast trotter is quite unsupported for 

 more than half the distance he traverses in each 

 stride. In the canter the order of the footfalls is 

 the same as in the case of the walk, and the 

 characteristic difference is due to the peculiar 

 rhythm as well as to the final effort which propels 

 the body at the conclusion of the stride as the 

 fore-leg leaves the ground. 



We may analyse the gallop by the aid of the 

 accompanying reduced silhouettes copied from 

 Muybridge, and then it will be seen that its 

 conventional representation by artiste is quite 

 unlike any of the actual positions assumed by 

 the moving animal. Fig. 1, it must be remem- 

 bered, does not represent the start of the gallop, 

 Inn merely a phase in a continuous action : 

 the liodv is moving forward by im|w>tus already 

 acquired, and the fore-foot just leaving the ground 



