THE HORSE. 31 



ARGENTINE REPUBLIC. 



such a trifle; but as it is thought ridiculous in this country 

 ever to break in or ride a mare, they are of no value except 

 for breeding. The only thing for which I ever saw mares 

 used was to tread out wheat from the ear; for which pur- 

 pose they were driven round a circular enclosure, where the 

 wheat-sheaves were strewed. 



It is a marvellous fact that in South America a native 

 horse should have lived and disappeared, to be succeeded 

 in after-ages by the countless herds descended from the few 

 introduced with the Spanish colonists ! As the remains of 

 elephants, mastodons, horses, and hollow -horned ruminants 

 are found on both sides of Behring's Straits and on the 

 plains of Siberia, we are led to look to the north-western 

 side of North America as the former point of communication 

 between the Old and the so-called New World. And as so 

 many species, both living and extinct, of these same genera 



THRESHING CORN WITH HORSES IN ARMENIA. 



inhabit and have inhabited the Old World, it seems most 

 probable that the North American elephants, mastodons, 



