98 THE HORSE AND ITS RELATIVES 



Although the cave, or rock-shelter, of Solutre 

 could scarcely accommodate more than half-a-dozen 

 families, however tightly packed, the entrance was 

 protected by two walls of horse -bones, one a 

 hundred and fifty feet long, ten high, and twelve 

 thick, and the other forty feet long and five high. 

 M. Toussaint, who explored this shelter of Prehis- 

 toric man, roughly computed the number of animals 

 whose bones were thus stacked as forty thousand. 

 So many in one spot could hardly have been tame ; 

 and, if they were, a large proportion would be old, 

 but every one was quite young, many of them 

 being foals, so that it is evident they had been 

 killed in the chase, cut up, and brought home for 

 eating. 



It would be natural to conclude, writes Mr. 

 F. Boyle in the CornhilL Magazine for May 1911, 

 " that the hunters were horsemen. Boys would 

 jump upon the back of a quarry wounded and 

 overtaken ; the sport would teach them to ride, 

 and presently they would take to catching foals. 

 All the steps of the process follow logically. But 

 perhaps the first did not occur to our remote fore- 

 fathers. Asiatics never thought of riding till they 

 were infinitely more advanced ; Gauls and Britons 

 still clung to the chariot in Caesar's time. The 

 lake-dwellers were horsemen certainly we find 

 their bits and accoutrements. And they used the 

 same breed of horse which the men of Solutre^ ate, 



