82 SCIENCE FROM AN EASY CHAIR 



of the English thoroughbred in the eighteenth century 

 by such sires as the Darley Arabian, the Godolphin 

 Barb, and the Brierley Turk, whose blood is transmitted 

 to modern racehorses through the great historic sires, 

 Herod, Matchem, and Eclipse, the ancestors of practically 

 all modern racehorses. 



The horse of more Southern origin thus recognised as 

 distinct from the prehistoric European horse, it is now 

 convenient to speak of as the Southern or Arabian horse. 

 There are certain curious structural features which seem 

 to mark these horses and their offspring, even when their 

 strain is blended with that of the more Northern horse. 

 Probably from the time of the cave-men onward the 

 selective breeding of horses has been carried on, so that 

 in many breeds size has been vastly increased. It is an 

 important fact that the English racehorse has never been 

 selected and bred for " points " (as cattle and sheep are), 

 but always by performance on the racecourse. Thus it 

 becomes an extremely interesting matter to see what are 

 the changes which the breeder of thoroughbred stock 

 has unconsciously produced what are the differences 

 between the racehorse of to-day and that of 50, 100, 

 and 150 years ago. This was pointed out to me by the 

 late Duke of Devonshire as a reason for supporting my 

 proposal to secure and place in the Natural History 

 Museum the skulls, limb-bones, hoofs, and other in- 

 destructible parts of great racehorses (and of other 

 breeds), and also for having very accurately measured 

 reduced models made of such horses, in order that we 

 may after some years compare the proportions and 

 structure at present arrived at with the later develop- 

 ments which the continual selection of winner's blood in 

 breeding must unconsciously produce. Such a collection 

 was started by me in the museum, but it needs the 

 assistance of owners of horses both as to placing record 



