ORDER PERISSODACTYLA I ODD-TOED UNGULATES 329 



is such that we did not imagine they were spinning a yarn when they told us 

 about the wild horse in the tundras bordering the forests of this vast area. 

 They described in detail its size equal to that of a Yakut horse its long 

 whitish -grey hair, and its flesh, which was very fat and pleasant to taste. 

 If the description were really that of wild [= feral] horses, it was a puzzle 

 how and when their tame ancestors could have reached this quite uninhabited 

 Arctic region. And if they actually existed in the district between the two 

 largest tributaries of the Kolyma the Omolon and the Anjui which had 

 never yet been explored by any scientist, it was a very interesting matter 

 which scientists would find it well worth while to investigate. 



Pfizenmayer's assumption that these horses were descended from 

 tame ancestors is by no means necessarily correct. In this connection 

 it is of interest to recall Hay's opinion (1913, p. 9) that in the Yukon 

 Basin and adjacent parts of Alaska horses "became extinct about 

 the middle of the glacial epoch." 



Pfizenmayer writes further (pp. 176-177) : 



The prehistoric wild horse to which is probably related the animal that 

 Przevalski, the Russian explorer of Asia, discovered in 1870 and called a 

 wild horse has left remains everywhere in central and northern Siberia. 

 There is hardly one place on the banks of rivers and lakes in the district 

 of Yakutsk in which prehistoric remains of animals have been found that 

 has not yielded skeletal fragments of the prehistoric wild horse. 



In the landslide on the Beresovka we found, among the debris between 

 the larch trunks lying around in confusion and the masses of fallen earth, the 

 perfectly preserved upper skull of a prehistoric horse, to which fragments of 

 muscular fibre still adhered. . . . 



An exiled student told me, in Verkhoyansk on my way back from Kolymsk, 

 that an ivory hunter had found the carcass of a horse four years before, 

 sticking half out of the frozen earth in a fissure in the bank of a lake in the 

 tundra, in the northern part of the district. According to the description 

 by the man, who puzzled over the find unusual there the parts of the 

 body sticking out of the ground showed a covering of very long greyish-white 

 hair. Certainly the Yakut horse, a vigorous breed of pony, with probably a 

 strain of the wild horse, also has long hair to protect it from cold. Since, 

 however, there were no Yakut settlements for hundreds of miles round the 

 site of the find, we may conclude that the body was that of a prehistoric 

 wild horse. But it was naturally neither investigated nor salvaged. 



Determination of the relationship between this prehistoric horse 

 and the Recent Lamut Wild Horse must await the acquisition of 

 suitable museum material. 



In commenting upon some earlier publication of Pfizenmayer's 

 findings, Antonius writes (1938, p. 559) : "One might suppose that 

 these white horses are descendants of any semiferal Jakute-breed 

 the Jakutes being the most northern horse-breeders, but ... it, 

 could be possible that these wild horses of the Lamutes are the last 

 survivors of a northern branch of the Caballus-Group, and there 

 are some indications for a formerly much greater distribution includ- 

 ing not only Eastern Siberia, but also Alaska. Since the excavation 

 of the Beresovka-Mammoth there are no records of the Lamute 

 horses." 



