WILD TARPAN AND ITS RELATIONS 8i 



refer largely, if not entirely, to hybrid tarpans. 

 The Russian tarpan is now extinct, but one skeleton 

 is preserved in the Zoological Museum at Moscow, 

 and a second at St. Petersburg. One of the last 

 survivors would appear to have been a gelding 

 received in August 1884 at the Moscow Zoological 

 Gardens, which had been taken as a foal in the 

 government of Cherson in 1866. According to 

 Dr. W. Salensky ^ this animal agreed in the matter 

 of colour with Gmelin's description : but it had a 

 forelock, and the mane fell over to the left side. 

 There were no chestnuts on the hind legs. That 

 this animal was a hybrid is practically certain. 



The great majority of naturalists have refused to 

 admit the claims of the Russian tarpan in their 

 earlier days to be regarded as truly wild animals. 

 This view, however. Dr. Nehring,^ as already 

 mentioned, considers to be erroneous ; and it 

 seems most probable that even in Pallas's time there 

 were some Russian studs of more or less nearly 

 pure-bred tarpan, but that as time went on these 

 became more and more mixed with escaped domes- 

 ticated horses, so that to find pure-bred tarpan it 

 became necessary to go further and further east- 

 ward. 



A very important contribution to the history of 



1 Wissenschaftliche Resultate der voti N. M. Przewalski nach 

 Central-Asien untergennomenen Reisen, Manivialia, pt. i., St. Peters- 

 burg, 1902. 



* Ueber Tundren und Steppeii, pp. 92, 93. 



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