FERAL HORSES. 183 



tirely subdued, such, for example, as the Tarpans 

 before noticed, the Kirguise and Pamere woolly 

 white race, and the wild horses of Poland and 

 Prussia before described ; that from their similarity 

 or antecedent unity, they were constituted so as to 

 be fusible into a common, single, specific, but very 

 variable stock for the purposes of man, under whose 

 fostering care a more perfect animal was bred from 

 their mixture, than any of the preceding singly 

 taken. These inferences appear to be supported by 

 the ductility of all the secondary characters of wild 

 and domestic horses, which, if they are not ad- 

 mitted to constitute in some cases specific difi^erences, 

 where are we to find those that are sufi&cient to dis- 

 tinguish a wild from a domestic species? Since 

 most wild animals, and certainly all Equid^, are 

 placable in nonage ; else, why is the hemionus do- 

 mesticated at Lucknow not considered feral ? Why 

 is the onager or wild ass not claimed as a domestic 

 animal merely escaped from bondage ? And with 

 regard to different though osculating species, why 

 should the conclusions be i unsatisfactory in horses, 

 when in goats, sheep, wobes, dogs, and other spe- 

 cies, we are forced to accjde to them ? How object 

 to fusion, when species more remote, as in the case 

 of the quagga and mare, leave such lasting impres- 

 sions; and on the other hand, when we find the 

 white and the black hide of horses bearing inde- 

 lible coloured fiir, which crossing unceasingly only- 

 masks but does not obliterate ? When we see the 

 dun coloured form even now always middle-sized 



