10 DEVELOPMENT OF THE MODERN HORSE 



which this specialization has come about, it will be interesting to 

 cast a passing glance at the type of animal from which he has 

 sprung. Away back in the remote geological ages, long before 

 history was written, aye ! even before man had made his appear- 

 ance on the earth, the forms of life, both animal and plant, were 

 quite different from those with which we are familiar. Whole 

 families of animals have appeared, come to a high degree of devel- 

 opment and numerical importance, declined, and disappeared in 

 the interval. 



The first ancestor of the horse, whose fossil remains have been 

 identified as belonging to the family, lived in the early TERTIA- 

 RY time, in what was called the EOCENE period, and it is in 

 the rocks that were formed during that time these remains are now 

 found. This was thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of 

 years ago. This early ancestor of the horse from the age in which 

 he lived was called the EOHIPPUS. He was about the size of 

 a fox and instead of one toe on each leg he had four perfect toes 

 and one that was rudimentary. Contemporary with the eohippus 

 was another animal about fifteen inches in height with four toes, 

 called HYRACOTHERIUM. These two animals were quite 

 similar, perhaps indeed, of the same species. The OROHIP- 

 PUS AGILIS of Prof. Marsh also belongs to the eocene time 

 and differed from the foregoing in that three of the four toes on 

 each foot were considerably smaller than the main central toe. 



In the succeeding MIOCENE period a similar animal existed, 

 but it had by this time increased its size to about that of a sheep 

 and had lost one toe entirely from each foot. The MIOHIPPUS 

 had one large functional toe on each foot and a smaller toe on 

 either side of it, which did not always touch the ground in walking. 



The last of the tertiary periods, the PLIOCENE, presents an- 

 other interesting representative of the family, which is also named 



' ' I have used this Gall Cure at the Page (Bros. ' stock farm on cuts, galls, 

 old sores, and find it the best thing of its kind ever used. 



H. L. Page, East Bethany, N. Y." 



