July 23. 1903] 



NATURE 



27 



THE WILD HORSE.' 



IN the time of Pallas and Pennant, as in the days 

 of Oppian and Pliny, it was commonly believed 

 that true wild horses were to be met with, not only in 

 Central Asia, but also in Europe and Africa. But 

 ere the middle of the nineteenth century was reached, 

 naturalists were beginning to question the existence of 

 genuine wild horses ; and somewhat later, the con- 

 clusion was arrived at that the horse had long " ceased 

 to exist in a state of nature." * 



This view had barely been accepted by zoologists 

 when it was announced from St. Petersburg that a 

 true wild horse had at last been discovered in Central 

 Asia by the celebrated Russian traveller, Przewalsky. 



An account of this horse was communicated by 

 Poliakoff, in 1881, to the Imperial Russian Geo- 

 graphical Society.' The material at Poliakoff's dis- 

 posal being limited, zoologists were not 

 at once disposed to admit that Przewal- 

 sky 's horse, as it came to be called, 

 deserved to rank as a distinct species. 

 Some believed the new horse had no 

 more claim for a place amongst wild 

 forms than the mustangs of the western 

 prairies or the brumbies of the Austra- 

 lian bush ; while others asserted it was 

 merely a hybrid between the Kiang 

 {Eqtius hemionus) and a Mongolian or 

 other eastern pony. 



Even after the brothers Grijimailo, in 

 i8go,' added somewhat to Poliakoff's 

 original description from material (four 

 skins and a skeleton) brought from the 

 Dzungaria desert, naturalists were still 

 sceptical. The greatest English 

 authority on the structure and classifi- 

 cation of the Equidae during the latter 

 part of the nineteenth century was th( 

 late Sir William Flower. Writing in 

 1891, Flower says: — "Much interest, 

 not yet thoroughly satisfied, has been 

 excited among zoologists " by Polia- 

 koff's announcement, but, he added. 

 " Until more specimens are obtained, ii 

 is difficult to form a definite opinion a-^ 

 to the validity of the species, or to resisi 

 the suspicion that it may not be an 

 accidental hybrid between the Kiani; 

 and the horse." * 



Since Flower expressed this opinion 

 quite a number of specimens illustrating 

 the form and structure of Przewalsky "> 

 horse at various ages have been added 

 to the St. Petersburg Zoological Museum, and in 1902 

 Mr. Hagenbeck, of Hamburg (commissioned by His 

 Grace the Duke of Bedford) imported from Mongolia 

 between twenty and thirty living Przewalsky " colts. ■ 

 Though about half of these colts found their way to 

 England, and though Dr. W. Salensky, director of 

 tha Zoological Museum of St. Petersburg, published 

 last year an elaborate monograph* on Przewalsky 's 

 horse, English zoologists are not yet satisfied that we 

 have in this member of the horse family a true and 

 valid species. 



So far as I can gather, it is generally believed in 



1 The Wild Horse {^Eguus przewahkii, Poliakoff). By Prof. J. C. Ewart, 

 F.R.S. Read before the Royal Society of Edinburgh, June 15. 



■^ Bell's " British Quadrupeds. " 



3 A translation of Poliakoff's paper will be found in the Anna's and 

 .^tagaztne of Natural History, 1881. See also Tegetmeier and Suther- 

 land's " Horses, Asses and Zebras." 



•* See Proceedings of the Roy. Geog. Soc, April, 1891. 



' Flower, " The Horse," pp. 78, 70. 



" " Wissenschaftliche Resultate der von N. M. Przewal-ki nach Central 

 Asien." Zool. Theil : Band i. , Mammalia; Abth. a, Ungulata. (St. 

 Petersburg, 1902.) 



NO. 1760, VOL. 68] 



England that Przewalsky 's horse is a hybrid — a cross 

 between a pony and a Kiang. Beddard, however, 

 admits it may be a distinct type. He says : — " This 

 animal has been believed to be a mule between the 

 wild ass and a feral horse ; but if a distinct form-r- 

 and probability seems to urge that view — it is interest- 

 ing as breaking down the distinctions between horses 

 and asses." ^ 



It must be admitted that in its mane and tail 

 Przewalsky 's horse is strongly suggestive of a hybrid, 

 but in the short mane and mule-like tail we may very 

 well have a persistence of ancestral characters — in the 

 wild asses and zebras the mane is always short, and 

 they never have long persistent hairs at the proximal 

 end of the tail. 



Though a superficial exa!mination may lead one to 

 think with Flower that Przewalsky 's horse is an acci- 

 dental hybrid, a .careful study of the soft parts and 



Kiang pony Hybrid, <et. two days. 



Adderhy. 



skeleton inevitably leads to quite a different conclusion. 

 Though failing to understand why so many zoo- 

 logists persisted in considering the horse of the Great 

 Gobi Desert to be a mule, I decided to breed a number 

 of Kiang-horse hybrids.^ 



With the help 'of Lord Arthur Cecil, I succeeded 

 early in 1902 in securing a male wild Asiatic ass and 

 a couple of Mongolian pony mares — one a yellow-dun, 

 the other a chestnut. "Jacob," the wild ass, was 

 mated with the dun Mongol mare, with a brownish- 

 yellow Exmoor pony, and with a bay Shetland-Welsh 

 pony. The chestnut Mongol pony was put to a light 

 grey Connemara stallion. Of the four mares referred 

 to, three have already (June) foaled, viz. the Exmoor 

 and the two Mongolian ponies. The Exmoor having 

 foaled first, her hybrid may be first considered. 



1 Beddard, " Mammalia," p. 240. (Macmillan, 1902.) 



2 Sir William Flower, the late president of the London Zoological Society, 

 having more than hinted in 1891 that Przewalsky's horse was a mule, one 

 would have thought an effort would have been made fcrthwith to test this 

 view in the Society's Garden. 



