332 EXTINCT AND VANISHING MAMMALS 



typical form. It is proposed to introduce and preserve some of them 

 in the Polish National Park at Bialowies. 



"According to Vetulani, the enigmatic wild white horse described 

 by Herodotus as grazing in the northern marshy land may well have 

 been the Polish wild pony grazing in the Polesie bogs situated close 

 to the Bielowieza Forest" ( Janikowski, 1942, p. 682) . 



According to Niezabitowski (1934, p. 196), E. gmelini Antonius 

 lived formerly in the steppe region of eastern Poland, while E. 

 gmelini silvaticus Vetulani inhabited the Bialowies Forest up to 

 the middle of the eighteenth century. 



Heptner reports (1934, pp. 431-433) that the last example of 

 Tarpan was seen in 1914-18. It lived at that time on an estate in 

 Dubrowka, Mirgorod district, Government of Poltava, and was 

 very old. It had been purchased as a young animal from German 

 colonists, who shortly before had destroyed a small herd of wild 

 horses. Hitherto the last Tarpans in South Russia were supposed to 

 have died out in the 1870's. They survived longest on the steppes 

 of the Government of Cherson. 



From the foregoing it may be gathered that it is virtually impos- 

 sible to state even approximately when the last truly wild repre- 

 sentatives of the genus Equus perished in the various European 

 countries. Even the names that should be applied to them are far 

 from settled. The type of Equus caballus caballus Linnaeus is the 

 Scandinavian domesticated horse of the time of Linnaeus obviously 

 at least subspecifically distinct from the Russian Wild Horse. 

 Certainly all Wild Horses are now extinct, with the exception of 

 Przewalski's Horse of Central Asia. 



For a fuller account of the Wild Tarpan and its relations, Lydekker 

 (1912, pp. 71-116) may be consulted. For a discussion of some of the 

 nomenclatural problems involved, see Harper (1940, pp. 195-197). 



Antonius (1938, pp. 557-558) gives the following illuminating 

 account of the caballus-group of horses : 



In times not long before the beginning of historical days there were true 

 wild horses of the Caballus type spread over the whole Eurasiatic continent 

 from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from the shores of Northern Siberia 

 to the Indian Ocean. Only two, or at the utmost three, of the many local 

 and geological races have survived until our days. The first of these was a 

 mouse-dun horse, which Albertus Magnus, the great interpreter of Aristotle, 

 means when he calls the colour of the wild horse "cinereus," i. e., ash-coloured. 

 There can be little doubt that these ash-dun or mouse-dun wild horses were 

 often intermingled with escaped domestic horses of the feral breeds, thence 

 spread over Europe. But there are some indications by which in many cases 

 their true wild nature may be ascertained. The one is the high value of 

 these horses for princely gifts, the other the short upright mane, and the 

 third the uniformly ash colour, so often recorded. If the first Duke of 

 Prussia, Albert von Hohenzollern, sent wild horses as highly esteemed gifts 

 to the mightiest sovereign of his days, the Emperor, and also to the Arch- 



