CHAPTER VIII. 



THE HORSE. 



" Ripa nutritus in ilia, 

 Ad quam Gorgonei delapfa eft penna caballi.' 



(Juv. Sat., iii. 117.) 



iEMAINS of the horfe in a domefti- 

 cated ftate have been found in Swifs 

 lake - dwellings of the Neolithic 

 period, but Profeflbr Huxley deems 

 that the anchitheres of the upper Eocene times 

 were the true anceftors of the horfe. Thefe foflil 

 creatures were about the fize of Shetland ponies, 

 and poffefTed three diftinct hoofs on each foot. 1 

 Without committing ourfelves to a belief in the 

 Darwinian doctrines of defcent, we may well be 

 grateful to fcience for pointing out the different 

 ftages in which creative Wifdom was pleafed 

 to fafhion fimilar extinct animals, before giving 

 man fo ufeful a creature as the horfe. A very 

 early fpecimen of art reprefents the foflil horfe 



1 Dawkins, "Early Man in Britain," p. 32, and Sir J. 

 Lubbock, "Addrefs to the Britifh Affociation," Sept. 1881 ; 

 fee, too, his " Fifty Years of Science," p. 9 (Macmillan, 1882). 



