154 THE WILD HORSE. 



iveries, of tlieir marks, in a streak alono- the back 

 ind bars on the limbs, of dappled croups and shoul- 

 ders, or of dark uniform colours, dense or thin 

 manes and tails, although traits now mixed, feeble, 

 and evanescent, they appear to be indications of 

 original difference of forms sufficient to be distinct 

 though osculating species, or at least of races sepa- 

 rated at so remote a period that they may claim to 

 have been divided from the earliest times of our 

 present zoology. 



Wild horses, by Oppian denominated hippagri 

 and by Pliny equiferi^ are first mentioned by Hero- 

 dotus as being of a white colour and inhabiting 

 Scythia, about the river Hypanis or Bog; he no- 

 tices others in Thrace, beyond the Danube, distin- 

 guished by a long fur. Aristotle {de Mirdb) indi- 

 cates them in Syria, but with manners that seem 

 to refer them to hemionus or onager. Oppian places 

 his hippagrus in Ethiopia, and denies the presence of 

 wild horses in Syria ; an opinion entitled to credit 

 from his local knowledge and his description of the 

 onager, which shows that he was acquainted with 

 both. Leo Africanus, in support of Oppian, men- 

 tions the wild horse of Africa as rarely seen or 

 captured by hunters with their dogs, but to be 

 entrapped in snares laid for them about the fresh- 

 water springs. The Gordians produced in the shows 

 of Rome eighty wild horses, according to Julius 

 Capitolinus, and it is supposed they were obtained 

 from Africa, where the family had its principal 

 landed property: unfortunately no description is 



