HORSES. 5 



liorso was undoubtedly the Equus primigenius of Meyer, and 

 which was also called Hlppotlierium gracile by Wagner. It 

 ranged from the Himalayas to the Alps, and existed from the 

 Miocene period, geologically speaking, to the Diluvium, or the 

 recent formations. The limbs of a fossil pony, if such we 

 may call it, were discovered in the upper Tertiary clay of 

 Nebraska, at Antelope Station, on the line of the Union 

 Pacific Railroad, in 1868, which were carefully examined and 

 described by Prof. 0. C. Marsh, of New Haven, who believed 

 that the restored skeleton of this species would not exceed 

 two and a half feet in heiglit ; and therefore very appropriate- 

 ly named it Equiis imrvulus^' This is the seventeenth species 

 of fossil horse now known to have been indigenous to this 

 continent. Numerous teeth and fragmentary portions of the 

 so-called Uquus fossilis, wliicli undoubtedly included several 

 species that were closely allied to the present horse, have been 

 discovered in the Drift in various parts of Europe and 

 America. 



Thus it will be seen that the geographical distribution of 

 the Equidae in a former period of the earth's history, was 

 very extensive in both hemispheres. But it is believed by 

 Professor Owen, Darwin, and other distinguished naturalists, 

 that this family had been entirely blotted out of tlie Fauna of 

 our part of the globe ere the fall of the footstep of man had 

 been heard. According to this view the horse became extinct 

 in North America cotemporary with the Mammoth, and in 

 Soutli xVmerica with the Megatherium. For it is alleged 

 that the remains of the primitive horses of the New World 

 lie intermingled in the same geological strata with these huge 

 quadrupeds, and no intermediate species are found in tlie 

 later formations, thus intimating that the wild liorses of to- 

 day upon our pampas and prairies, were introduced here in 

 the state of domestication by the Spanish colonies in the fif- 

 teenth century. While on the other hand it is claimed that 

 the recent discoveries in Paleontology seem to indicate that 



^American Journal of Science and Arts, vol. XL VI, Xovember, 1868. 

 See Owen's Paleontology, and his History of the British Fossil Mammalia, 

 and also the article Equidai in Knight's Cyelopadia of Natural History. 



