POSITION AND STRUCTURE OF HORSE 25 



important still was a letter from Mr. Wilfred Scawen 

 Blunt, the well-known possessor of a stud of Arabs, 

 in which it was stated that he once owned a horse 

 of this breed in which there was a well-developed 

 and functional gland on one side of the face in the 

 same position as the larmier of a deer. The 

 identification of the preorbital depression in the 

 skulls of certain existing members of the horse 

 family has been accepted by Sir E. Ray Lankester,^ 

 who remarked that although dissection had not 

 revealed any existence of glandular tissue in the 

 structures overlying this structure in horses of 

 Arab descent (in which the feature is very constant), 

 yet it is not improbable that occasional instances 

 of such survival will some day come to light 



On the other hand, Mr. R. I. Pocock,- after 

 dissecting a number of horses' heads, came to a 

 precisely opposite conclusion ; remarking that he 

 had failed to discover any trace of glandular tissue 

 in the soft parts overlying the depression, and that 

 the depression itself is very variable in its degree 

 of development. He then adds that " from this 

 hollow or from the corresponding area of the skull 

 [when it is absent] arises a long muscle which 

 passes forwards to supply the upper lip and nose ; 

 and I believe its sole significance is to give an 

 increase of surface for muscular fibres. If this 



^ Science from an Easy-Chair^ London, 1910, p. 87. 



2 Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., London, ser. 7, vol. xv., p. 517, 1905. 



