;8 SCIENCE FROM AN EASY CHAIR 



Bedford. A female is mounted and exhibited in the 

 Natural History Museum, and also a skeleton and skulls. 

 Prevalsky's horse, or the Mongolian wild horse, is of 

 small stature, standing about twelve hands at the shoulder. 

 The root of the tail is short-haired, the mane short and 

 upright, without forelock. The body colour is yellow dun, 

 the mane and tail black, as well as the lower part of the 

 legs, and there is a dark stripe down the back. The 

 muzzle in pure-bred specimens is white. The head is 

 relatively large and the muzzle thick and relatively short. 

 A very decided character is shown by the great size and 

 relative length of the row of cheek-teeth, it being one- 

 third larger than the same row of teeth in a Dartmoor 

 pony of the same stature. 



A very interesting fact, which goes a long way to 

 establish the view that the European domesticated horse 

 is derived from the Mongolian wild horse, comes to us in 

 a most striking way from some of the most ancient 

 records of the human race. In the South of France the 

 contents of caves formerly inhabited by men have been 

 dug out and examined with increasing care and accuracy 

 of late years, though first investigated fifty years ago. 

 Similar caves, though not so prolific of evidences of human 

 occupation, have been explored in England (Kent's Cavern 

 at Torquay, and others). The astounding fact has now 

 become quite clear that these caves were inhabited by 

 men of no mean capacity from 50,000 to 250,000 years 

 ago, when bone harpoons, flint knives, flint scrapers, and 

 bone javelin-throwers were the -chief weapons in use, 

 when these islands were solidly joined to the European 

 continent, when a sheet of glacial ice, alternately retreat- 

 ing and extending, covered the whole of Northern Europe, 

 and when the mammoth, rhinoceros, hyena, lion, bear, 

 bison, great ox, horse, and later the reindeer, inhabited 

 the land and were hunted, eaten, and utilised for their 



