THE WILD HORSE. 147 



coloured forms of horse already noticed are species 

 osculating with others in their original state of li- 

 herty, or mark one or more races that have returned 

 to their primitive condition and resumed manners 

 and habits conformable with their organization, 

 after they had been under the dominion of man, at 

 an anterior period more or less remote. On the one 

 hand, differences cannot he consistently drawn from 

 facts not immediately in the reach of physiology, 

 without a careful consideration of the data that 

 must justify them ; nor, on the other, can any ad- 

 vance be obtained in this direction of the natural 

 sciences, without the license and use of some daring 

 in the solution of propositions depending in a certain 

 degree upon induction from testimonial authority. 



Respecting the wild or rather feral horses, of 

 South and North America, Cuba, and St. Domingo, 

 whose origin is well known, no difference of opi- 

 nion can properly arise, notwithstanding that a late 

 acute observer detected, in alluvial deposits, the 

 bones of horses in company with those of Megathe- 

 rium, and apparently belonging to the same zoolo- 

 gical period; and that several recent travellers, in 

 the northern portion of that continent, question the 

 race of horses, now so abundant^ being imported sub- 

 sequent to the discovery by Columbus. * But doubts 



* Notwithstanding that the period of the destruction of 

 Megatherium, or Megalonix of Jefferson, admits of little doubt, 

 there exists among the North American Indians a curious 

 legend of a large animal they name Tagesho, or Yagesho, much 

 superior to the largest bear, remarkably long-bodied, broad at 



