328 EXTINCT AND VANISHING MAMMALS 



by Przewalski's Horse in different parts of its range, Lydekker says 

 (1912, p. 89) : 'These differences suggest that there has been some 

 admixture with domesticated breeds." Who can even say that the 

 type specimen was purebred? 



The chances of mixture with domestic stock are suggested by 

 Carruther's report (1913, pp. 532-533) of "immense droves of horses 

 running half wild over the prairies" in the vicinity of Barkul, 

 southern Dzungaria. "We . . . believe that the real 'wild animals' of 

 the Barkul basin signify the great herds of unridable horses which 

 roam untamed over the steppes. These form an Imperial Stud, and 

 are said to number fifteen thousand, the pick of which are trans- 

 ported yearly to Pekin." 



Domestication. On this subject Peake (1933, pp. 99-100) says: 



There can be no doubt that the horse was first tamed in the grasslands 

 of Central Asia, for it is only there that the wild horse, known as Przewal- 

 sky's horse, is to be found to-day. The first mention of the horse that has 

 been met with is in a document from Babylon, dating from before 2000 B. C., 

 in which it is called the ass from the East. This indicates the direction from 

 which it came, but it does not seem to have been introduced into Mesopotamia 

 before the arrival of the Kassite conquerors about 1746 B. C. We have, 

 however, some reasons for believing that it had been tamed at an earlier 

 date. Into the north of Mesopotamia there had arrived some centuries earlier 

 a people known as the Kharians, some of whom were later called the Mitanni. 

 These, we know, were great horsemen. They occupied the country around 

 Haran, which lies between the Tigris and the Euphrates just below the points 

 at which they emerge from the mountains, and they seem to have arrived in 

 that district from the North-east, probably from the Persian plateau, whence 

 later the Kassites descended upon Mesopotamia. The horse was well known 

 also to the Hittites, the capital of whose kingdom lay in the centre of Asia 

 Minor. These people are believed to have arrived there about 1900 B. C. 

 from the North-west. All this evidence tends to show that the horse was 

 used as a means of transport both in Persia and upon the Russian steppe 

 well before 2000 B. C. It seems likely that it was first tamed in that part 

 of the world, or still farther east in Mongolia, as early as 3000 B.C., if not 

 before that date. 



Lamm Wild Horse 



EQUUS sp. 



Surprising news of a generally overlooked and probably extinct 

 Wild Horse in the Kolyma Basin of northeastern Siberia is fur- 

 nished by Pfizenmayer (1939, pp. 112-113). While excavating the 

 frozen carcass of a Mammoth on the Beresovka River in 1901, he 

 questioned two Lamut visitors as to 



what sort of wild animals they found in their distant hunting-ground on the 

 Omolon. To our great astonishment Taitshin mentioned the wild horse. As 

 zoologists thought wild horses existed only on the steppes of central Asia, we 

 received his statement very doubtfully, though Amuksan confirmed it by a 

 quite professional imitation of horses neighing. The reliability of the natives 



