182 FERAL HORSES. 



ponies ; collectively they may be called Sarans, and 

 although by some travellers they are considered 

 indigenous, the antique navigation of the seas sur- 

 rounding the Australian islands, in ships of suffi- 

 cient burthen to convey horses, and the variety of 

 colours we observe in the different breeds, seem to 

 attest, that if Solipedes, along with the tiger and 

 rhinoceros, were located upon them by the hand of 

 Nature, domesticated races have mixed with them 

 from very early times. We prefer to conjecture 

 .that they were imported from opposite directions 

 by the favour of each monsoon, and that the Chi- 

 nese stock spread by Formosa or Haynan, Lu9on, 

 the Philippine group, to the north-east coast of 

 Borneo and Celebes, where the people, less civilized, 

 permitted them to run feral, while the others of 

 higher race came through Sumatra and Java, spread- 

 ing eastward as far as Timor. 



Such is the result of a general review of the 

 question relating to wild horses, and we believe the 

 conclusions may be legitimately drawn : that of the 

 existing herds in a state of nature in High Asia, 

 some are not feral, but really wild ; that there was 

 a period when Equidae of distinct forms, or closely 

 approximating species, or races widely different, 

 wandered in a wild state in separate regions, the 

 residue of an anterior animal distribution, perhaps 

 upon the great mountain line of Central Asia, where 

 plateaux or table lands exceeding Armenian Ararat 

 in elevation are still occupied by wild horses ; that 

 of these some races still extant never have been en- 



