THE EQUIDJE, OB HORSES. 217 



That the two groups, the European and the 

 American, run parallel, perhaps without any inter- 

 course during the longest of the Mid-tertiary 

 periods, must not only be admitted as probable, 

 but be granted as possible. The probable coloni- 

 sation of America by the original inhabitants of 

 Asia took place before they had learned to make 

 use of the horse as a domestic animal. In 

 America the Horse no longer existed then. It 

 may be that the long-continued ice-formations 

 of the Diluvium had forced it to leave the high- 

 lying plains to which it had been accustomed, 

 and driven it to regions where it succumbed in 

 the struggle for existence. The Spaniards re- 

 introduced the horse to the New World, and now it 

 there also fulfils its mission as a companion to 

 man if we may for once use a teleological ex- 

 pression. In addition to all this, however, it must 

 also be stated that the American members of the 

 genus Horse have never advanced as close to our 

 present horse as the Diluvial members of the Euro- 

 pean family ; hence, that the true horse of our 



than in the Diluvial horses. Now, as Nehring, among other 

 things, proves that the splint bones of the Diluvial horse, of 

 Westeregel, are considerably larger and longer than they are 

 usually found in the domestic horse, the circumstances we en- 

 deavoured to prove above remain essentially the same. 



