THE HOBSE. 



are really wild — tliat is^ descendants of animals wliich. 

 have never been domesticated ; or feral — tliat is, descended 

 from animals wMcli liave escaped from captivity, like the 

 horses that roam over the plains of South America and 

 Australia, and the wild boars that now inhabit the forests 

 of New Zealand. 



Enthusiastic as sportsmen and hunting men may be over 

 the form and endowments of the horse, it is hardly too 

 much to say that naturalists enjoy the contemplation of 

 this glorious creature with no less pleasure, tracing with 

 great interest the modifications that have taken place 

 from the forms of the old extinct horse-like animals as 

 shown in their fossil remains ; modifications which have 

 adapted the modern horse to the present condition of 

 things on the earth^s surface. The extinct horse-like 

 animals of the older world had large feet with three and 

 even four toes, with short legs adapted for walking on 

 marshy or yielding ground, like the tapirs and rhinoceroses 

 of modern times. Leaving out of consideration these, 

 extinct animals, and speaking of the modern horses only, 

 we find that the specimens of the genus Equus are 

 inhabitants of the plains, for which their whole organisation 

 is specially adapted. 



It is interesting to compare the statements of two of the 

 most eminent zoologists regarding these equine animals. 

 The late Sir Richard Owen, in his ^^ Anatomy of Verte- 

 brates,'^ writes most graphically on the fitness of the 

 organisation of the horse for the needs of man, and he 

 speaks of the coincidence of the modification of the old 

 fossil forms into the present animals with the earliest 

 evidence of the human race. He fervently descants on 

 the fact that, of all the servants of man, none have proved 

 of more value to him. The horse, he says, since its subju- 



