ORDER PERISSODACTYLA : ODD-TOED UNGULATES 331 



not purebred, the name can hardly be applied to their truly wild 

 forebears in Russia, which have been extinct for probably more than 

 a century. In the present rather chaotic state of the nomenclature, 

 I feel unable to fix upon any one of the numerous names proposed as 

 applying strictly and validly to the form represented by the last 

 truly wild and purebred horses of Europe. 



A few quotations from the literature will indicate some of the 

 varying opinions on a complex subject. The later accounts can 

 hardly refer to purebred wild animals. Poliakof (1881, p. 20) says: 



The information regarding the tarpan collected by Rytchkof, Gmelin, 

 Georgi, and Pallas is of so contradictory and confusing a nature that many 

 zoologists have decided that the so-called wild horses, or "tarpans," were 

 not, strictly speaking, wild, but tamed horses which had resumed their 

 wild state on recovering their liberty .... Pallas . . . assumed the feral horses 

 . . . roaming over the steppes of the Yaik [Ural] and the Don as well as on 

 that of Baraba to have originated from domesticated horses owned by Kirghiz, 

 Kalmuks, or other wandering tribes, and to have become wild. . . . Un- 

 fortunately we have no reliable information on this legendary tarpan since 

 the end of the last century, not a single traveller either in Siberia or Russia 

 having communicated any information concerning it during the present 

 century. 



"The nearest approach to truly wild horses existing at present are 

 the so-called Tarpans, which occur in the steppe-country north of 

 the Sea of Azoff, between the river Dnieper and the Caspian. They 

 are described as being of small size, dun color, with short mane and 

 rounded, obtuse nose. There is no evidence to prove whether they 

 are really wild ... or feral." (Flower, 1892, p. 83.) 



Calinescu (1931, p. 82) reports Equus caballus gmelini as sur- 

 viving in Moldavia, Rumania, up to 1716. 



Vetulani (1933, pp. 281-282) gives the following account for 

 Poland. Hacquet (1794) describes wild horses kept in a zoological 

 garden near Samosch. They increased to such an extent that some 

 were shot and others were sent to Lemberg for use in combats with 

 carnivores. In Kajetan Kozmian's reminiscences of the years 1780- 

 1815 (published in 1858), we read likewise of wild horses in a 

 zoological garden near Zamosc or Samosch. They were allowed to 

 become extinct, apparently because in winter it was necessary to 

 provide barns and hay for them. These two references concern the 

 last wild Forest Tarpans of Poland ("E. c. gmelini ssp. silvatica") . 

 From Brincken (1874) we learn that this stock was derived from 

 the last wild horses in the Forest of Bialowies, and that finally they 

 were captured in the zoological garden near Samosch and divided 

 among the peasants. This represented the last stage in the domesti- 

 cation of the European Wild Tarpan. We still find in this vicinity 

 representatives of the Forest Tarpan type in an especially pure and 



