i io MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION 



imaginary ancestors. Both genealogies can scarcely 

 be true, and there is no actual proof of either. The 

 existing American horses, which are of European 

 parentage, are, according to the theory, descendants 

 of PalczotJierium, not of EoJiippus ; but if we had not 

 known this on historical evidence, there would have 

 been nothing to prevent us from tracing them to the 

 latter animal. This simple consideration alone is 

 sufficient to show that such genealogies are not of 

 the nature of scientific evidence. 



This genealogy of the horse has been made so 

 much of, that perhaps it may be useful to look a 

 little more minutely into its merits as a demonstra 

 tion of evolution, and to consider what we really 

 know of the origin and history of this useful quadru 

 ped, so peculiar in some points of structure, and so 

 eminently the friend and companion of man. It was 

 immediately preceded in the Tertiary period (Miocene 

 and Pliocene) by a horse-like animal, the Hipparion, 

 which, among other things, differed from its modern 

 representative in having its splint bones represented 

 by two side toes, a conformation supposed to adapt it 

 to locomotion on soft and swampy ground. The 

 Hipparion was preceded in the earlier European Ter 

 tiary (Eocene) by the Palceotherium, and in America 

 by EoJiippus and Oroliippus, in which the side toes 

 were still further developed so as to touch the ground, 

 giving the foot a tridactyl character. These relations 

 have induced the belief that these forms may be an 



