THE EXISTING EQUIDAE 



19 



later stage in this work 1 . 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 FlG - 12 - 



., , , ., i , 



in its mane and tail, but also 



Hind-leg (left) of 'Celtic' 

 pony showing no hock callosity. 



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). 



22 



