n] 



THE EXISTING EQUIDAE 



19 



I 



later stage in this work\ Prof. Ewart thinks that there is 

 some evidence of its occurrence in the New Forest, and he 

 holds that it is " conceivable that the Celtic pony in its present 

 form never existed in the East, but that it is a modified 

 descendant of a small horse, which left the ancestral home 

 in Central Asia and reached Europe long before the arrival 

 of neolithic man." He pointed out that the drawings in 

 the Dordogne caves suggest the 

 existence of a small horse that 

 might very well correspond to 

 the Celtic pony, and further, that 

 in Pleistocene deposits bones 

 had been found of two kinds of 

 horses, one a horse with small 

 head, slender limbs, and small 

 teeth, which again suggested 

 the Celtic pony. In the Celtic 

 pony not only are the hock cal- 

 losities wanting (Fig. 12), but 

 the front chestnuts are small, 

 and, still more remarkable, the 

 fetlock callosities (ergots) have 

 entirely vanished : in asses and 

 zebras the ergots are always 

 present, and in some cases still 

 play the part of pads. The 

 Celtic pony is hence not only 

 more specialized — further re- 

 moved from the primitive type 

 — in its mane and tail, but also 

 in having got rid of the fetlock pads (ergots) and the hock (heel) 

 callosities. Capt. Hayes has frequently noticed the same absence 

 of ergots in North African and Arab horses. 



" Except in size I have been unable to discover any difference 

 between the skeleton and teeth of the Celtic pony and the 

 small horse of the ' Elephant bed ' of the Brighton Pleistocene. 



1 Mr F. H. A. Marshall, B.A., Christ's College, Cambridge, has recently- 

 noticed a Welsh pony without hock callosities {Nature, 13 Aug. 1904). 



2—2 



:^ ^' 



Fig. 12. Hind-leg (left) of 'Celtic' 

 pony showing no hock callosity. 



