96 THE HORSE AND ITS RELATIVES 



is considered by Dr. Duerst 1 to have been the 

 ancestor, although he also mentions near relation- 

 ship to the tarpan. Bred, like the Arab, for speed 

 and a desert-life, it is believed by the same writer 

 to have been imported during the Bronze and Iron 

 Ages into Europe, where it is well represented by 

 the small horse of La Tene. 2 Dr. Duerst thus 

 regards all existing domesticated horses as derived 

 from a single ancestral wild type, namely, the 

 extinct forerunner of the tarpan ; such differences 

 as characterise the various breeds being due to 

 adaptive development. The subject is again referred 

 to in the fifth chapter ; but it may be mentioned 

 here that the evidence for the derivation of the Arab 

 from the Anau horse does not appear conclusive, 

 as no account is taken of the possibility of that 

 animal having a mixture of Arab and tarpan blood. 

 Very different from the last is the forest-type 

 (. c. nehringi\ which was a small, stout horse, 

 or pony, believed by Dr. Duerst 8 to have originated 

 in the primeval forests of Germany, where it 

 gradually became more and more stunted in size 

 and thicker in the limbs, and where it was eventually 

 domesticated. According, however, to Professor 

 P. Matschie, 4 this small forest horse, or pony, is 

 identical with a race from Wlirtemberg described 



1 Loc. tit. 2 Ibid., p. 431. 3 Loc. tit. 



4 " Allerlei aus der Geschichte der Einhufer," Monatshefte fur 

 Naturwiss. Unterricht^ vol. ii. p. 303, Leipsic, 1909. 



