] 72 THE WILD HORSE. 



natives to include in their description of horses, spe- 

 cies that can be only referred to ruminants. Con- 

 fusion, thus created, was increased by Albertus 

 Magnus, who finding in Oppian a true account of 

 the onager and another of the hippagrus or equi- 

 ferus of the Latin writers, coupled the two last 

 names with the description of the first, and was 

 followed by succeeding naturalists, excepting by 

 Johnston, who finding the poet's hippagrus a brown 

 bisulcate hornless animal of Ethiopia, caused a figure 

 to be engraved from the description, according to 

 which it is represented also with tusks and a mane 

 extending the whole length of the spine. It is not 

 easy to account for the refusal of Linnean compilers 

 to place this supposed species by the side of Molina's 

 Equus bisulcu t s, the Huemel of Patagonia, for both 

 appear to be real species placed in a wrong order. 



The hippagrus, when reported to be solidungu- 

 lated, may be our E. hippagrus ; and when stated to 

 be bisulcate, is not a horse but a ruminant, probably 

 the same which Mr. Ruppel noticed by the name 

 of Boura of Koldagi, and perhaps the Boryes of 

 Herodotus, * as well as the Pegasus of Pliny, t 



* Boura of Koldagi, Ruppel. " A ruminant the size of an 

 ass ; both sexes hornless, covered with dark brown bristly hair 

 and having a long black mane on the neck, the legs brown- 

 black ; the animal is fleet, and resides on the hills." Mr. 

 Ruppel saw the skin of one at Cairo, and conjectures that it is 

 an undescribed species of Ovis. It may be also the Feshtall, 

 but that fish, slightly modified, will admit of other explana- 

 tions. See Herodotus, lib. iv. 



f See Griffith's Cuvier, Ruminantia. 



