HISTORY. 453 



but when old, do not resign their natural wildness. They 

 have been partially domesticated, and may even have been 

 mixed in blood, in early times, with the Horses and Asses of 

 certain countries. 



Besides the Dziggithai, other species of Equidse, exhibit- 

 ing, in like manner, a class of characters intermediate be- 

 tween those of the Horse and Ass, appear to exist in the same 

 regions. But, as yet, our information regarding them is too 

 imperfect to allow us to include them amongst determined 

 species. They seem to resemble the Hemionus, or to be 

 identical with it. One has been found at the sources of the 

 Kiang or Yong-ste river, in Thibet, scouring in herds along 

 elevated plains, at the height of 16,000 feet above the level of 

 the sea. This appears to be the animal described by Colonel 

 Hamilton Smith, from an individual found in a livery stable 

 in London. It is described as being about three feet high at 

 the withers, of a reddish colour, with a dark dorsal line, and 

 streaks on the shoulder and limbs ; as having a short tail, 

 scantily supplied with long hair, an upright mane, ears 

 moderately short, the head graceful, and resembling that 

 of an Arabian horse, with the shoulder, croup, and limbs 

 asinine. 



But of all the Equidse found in the wilds of Asia, that 

 which the most interests us is the true or Common Horse, 

 Equus Caballus. Wild Horses, it is known from the con- 

 current testimony of many writers, existed in a former age 

 in Europe. Herodotus mentions their existence in Thrace, 

 Varro in Spain, Appian and other writers in different parts 

 of the Roman dominions. They appear to have been found 

 in some parts of Europe even up to the sixteenth century. 

 Boece mentions them as amongst the " Harts and other Wild 

 Bestiall" found in Scotland in his day, and refers to the 

 means by which the inhabitants were enabled to reclaim them ; 

 and up to a later period, herds appear to have been kept by 

 Polish nobles in parks, in the manner of deer, for venison ; 

 and in Corsica, at this day, a race of small wild horses, 



