MODERN HORSES AND THEIR ANCESTORS 83 



specimens in the museum and in paying for the prepara- 

 tion of accurately reduced models by competent artists. 

 It already comprises the skulls of Stockwell, Bend Or, 

 and Ormonde, and several carefully made reduced models 

 of celebrated horses. There is no doubt that the English 

 racehorse has increased in size. He is a bigger animal 

 to-day than he was 200 years ago, and the opinion of 

 the best authorities is that he has increased on the 

 average an inch in height at the withers in every 

 twenty-five years. The racehorse has a much longer 

 thigh-bone and upper-arm bone (in proportion to the rest 

 of the leg) than has the cart-horse, and it is probable that 

 this length has been continually increased by the selection 

 of winners for breeding. 



There are other points of scientific interest as to 

 modern horses and their forefathers which are illustrated 

 by valuable specimens and preparations placed by me in 

 the Natural History Museum. 



All those hairy warm-blooded quadrupeds which 

 suckle their young, and are hence called mammals, are 

 the descendants of small five-toed ancestors about the 

 size of a spaniel. This is equally true of the elephant, 

 the gorilla, the horse, and the ox. In the sands and 

 clays deposited since the time of the chalk-sea, the 

 remains (bones and teeth) of the ancestors of living 

 mammals are found in great abundance. These sands 

 and clays are called "the Tertiaries," and are divided 

 into lower, middle, and upper whilst we recognise as 

 " Post-Tertiaries " (or Quaternary) the later formed 

 gravel and cave deposits in which the remains and 

 weapons of the cave-men have been found. The Ter- 

 tiaries consist of a series of deposits amounting to about 

 3000 feet in thickness, and they have taken several 

 million years in depositing no one can say how 

 many. 



