22 THE PRESENT CONDITION 



simpler matter, I may take that first. In its wild state, 

 and In-fore the discovery of America, when the natural 

 state of things was interfered with by the Spaniards, the 

 Horse was only to be found hi parts of the earth which are 

 known to geographers as the Old World ; that is to say, 

 you might meet with horses in Europe, Asia, or Africa ; 

 but there were none in Australia, and there were none 

 whatsoever in the whole continent of America, from 

 Labrador down to Cape Horn. This is an empirical fact, 

 and it is what is called, stated in the way I have given it 

 you, the ' Geographical Distribution ' of the Horse. 



\Vhy horses should be found in Europe, Asia, and Africa, 

 and not in America, is not obvious ; the explanation that 

 the conditions of life in America are unfavourable to their 

 existence, and that, therefore, they had not been created 

 there, evidently does not apply ; for when the invading 

 Spaniards, or our own yeomen farmers, conveyed horses to 

 these countries for their own use, they w r cre found to 

 thrive well and multiply very rapidly ; and many are even 

 now running wild in those countries, and in a perfectly 

 natural condition. Now, suppose we were to do for every 

 animal what we have here done for the Horse, that is, to 

 mark of! and distinguish the particular district or region to 

 which each belonged ; and supposing we tabulated all 

 these results, that would be called the Geographical Dis- 

 tribution of animals, while a corresponding study of plants 

 would yield as a result the Geographical Distribution of 

 plants. 



I pass on from that now, as I merely wished to explain 

 to you what I meant by the use of the term ' Geographical 

 Distribution/ As I said, there is another aspect, and a 

 much more important one, and that is, the relations of the 

 various animals to one another. The Horse is a very well- 

 defined matter-of-fact sort of animal, and we are all pretty 

 f;ii;;iliar with its structure. I dare say it may have struck 

 you, that it resembles very much no other member of the 

 animal kingdom, except perhaps the Zebra or the Ass. 

 But let me ask you to look along these diagrams. Here 

 is the skeleton of the Horse, and here the skeleton of the 

 Dog. You will notice that we have in the Horse a skull, 

 a backlxmi' :md ribs, shoulder-blades and haunch-bones. 

 In the fore-limb, one upper arm-bone, two fore arm-bones, 

 bones (wrongly called knee), and middle hand-bones, 

 ending in the three bones of a finger, the last of which is 



