Il] THE EXISTING EQUIDAE 31 



discovery, or rediscovery, as it may prove to be, that I shall 

 give them in his own words 1 : " Whatever may be the lucu- 

 brations of naturalists in their cabinets it does not appear that 

 the Tahtar or even the Cossack nations have any doubt upon the 

 subject, for they assert that they can distinguish a feral breed 

 from the wild by many tokens ; and naming the former Takja 

 and Muzin, denominate the real wild horse Tarpan and Tarpani. 

 We have had some opportunity of making personal inquiries 

 on wild horses among a considerable number of Cossacks of 

 different parts of Eussia, and among Bashkirs, Kirghis, and 

 Kalmucks, and with a sufficient recollection of the statements 

 of Pallas, and Buffon's information obtained from M. Sanchez, 

 to direct the questions to most of the points at issue. From 

 the answers of Russian officers of this irregular cavalry, who 

 spoke French or German, we drew the general conclusion of 

 their decided belief in a true wild and untameable species 

 of horse 2 , and in herds that were of mixed origin. Those most 

 acquainted with the nomad life, and in particular an orderly 

 Cossack attached to a Tahtar chief as Russian interpreter, 

 furnished us with the substance of the following notice. The 

 Tarpani form herds of several hundred, subdivided into smaller 

 troops, each headed by a stallion ; they are not found unmixed, 

 excepting towards the borders of China; they prefer wide, 

 open, elevated steppes, and always proceed in lines or files, 

 usually with the head to windward, moving slowly forward 

 while grazing the stallions leading and occasionally going 

 round their own troops ; young stallions are often at some 

 distance, and single, because they are expelled by the older 

 until they can form a troop of young mares of their own ; 

 their heads are seldom observed to be down for any length 

 of time : they utter now and then a kind of snort, with a 

 low neigh, somewhat like a horse expecting its oats, but yet 

 distinguishable by the voice from any domestic species, ex- 

 cepting the woolly Kalmuck breed. These animals are found 

 in the greatest purity on the lake Karakoum, south of the 

 lake of Aral, and the Syrdaria, near Kusneh, and on the banks 



1 "The Horse" (Naturalises Libranj, Vol. xn.), pp. 160-5. 



2 Cf. Pallas, Travels (French trans.), Vol. v. p. 378. 



