THE HORSE, HIS ORIGIN, ETC. 43 



of colts in this country, making them companion-servants, rather than 

 machine-slaves, subjecting them to the rule of kindness, rather than the 

 law of brute force, in short to training rather tiian to breaking, is due 

 the docility of American horses, in contrast to the temper and stubborn 

 acquiescence of English horses ; and this we believe is coming more and 

 more to be generally acknowledged. 



IV. The Wild Horses of To-day. 



Of the so-called wild horses of the various countries of the earth, we 

 have the authoiity of Mungo Park for the fact that wild horses exist in 

 great herds, in the country of Sudamar, far to the southward of the 

 great desert of Sahara, and in all that district extending to Nubia and 

 Upper Abyssinia, where there are fertile, well-watered, grassy plains, 

 and partially wooded countries. 



In northern Asia, and especially in southern Siberia, vast droves of wild 

 horses are known to exist ; and in all that great pasturable region inhabited 

 by the Tartars, both in Russian Europe and Asia there are countless 

 herds semi-wild. These Tartar horses are said to owe their origin to the 

 cavalry steeds turned loose in 1657, at the siege of Azof. In Canada, 

 and in the Falkland Islands horses released from control become wild and 

 sustain themselves in that condition. It is stated that horses released 

 from the dominion of Man, and gone wild, have been found in Hayt' 

 and Jamaica. The great pampas and other grassy plains of Centra' 

 America, North and South of the equator, including the Empire of Bra. 

 zil, and also in Mexico, Texas, California, and elsewhere in the southerly 

 portion of the great plains of the United States, once contained immense 

 droves of wild horses, the progenitors of which, escaping from the 

 Spanish conquerors of these countries, at length multiplied into countless 

 numbers. At the present day however there are but few that are not 

 claimed by proprietors except perhaps in some isolated regions near the 

 Equator. 



v. Fossil Horses. 



The fossil remains of horses are not rare in America. These fossil 

 remains, have also been found in Great Britain, in the oldest formation, 

 and of such extreme antiquity as to have been contemporaneous with 

 the elephant, rhinoceros, tiger and hyena, in Great Britain, and with the 

 mammoth and other similar fossils in America. These classes of animals 

 were entirely different from the animals of to-day, and the only means 

 of marking the lapse of ages intervening since they lived, is the succes- 

 sion of geological formations, and changes that have since taken place, 

 carrying to total extinction the series of animals that then, and subse- 

 quently, up to the advent of man, successively occupied the earth. 



