FOSSIL ASS, OR ZEBRA. 397 



Mammoth's remains, he has called the " Elephant Bed, 1 ' 

 on the Brighton cliffs, " are referable to a small species, 

 about the size of a Shetland Pony."* If we admit the 

 subgeneric separation of those species of the genus Equus, 

 Cuv., that have callosities on the fore-legs only, the tail 

 furnished with a terminal brush of long hair, and a longi- 

 tudinal dorsal line, the last-indicated fossil species may 

 be named Asinus fossilis. 



Several bones of a large Ass have been found with 

 remains of the Beaver and the Wild Boar in the marl 

 beneath the peat-formation at Newbury, Berks. 



In reviewing the general position and distribution of 

 the fossil remains of the genus Equus, we find that this 

 very remarkable and most useful form of Pachyderm 

 made its first appearance with the Rhinoceros during the 

 miocene tertiary periods of geology. 



From the peculiar and well-marked specific distinction 

 of the primogenial or slender-legged Horses (Hippothe- 

 rium), which ranged from central Europe to the then 

 rising chain of the Himalayan mountains, it is most pro- 

 bable that they would have been as little available for the 

 service of civilized man as is the Zebra or the Wild 

 Ass (Equus Tiemionus) of the present day ; and we can 

 as little infer the docility of the later or pliocene species, 

 Equus plicidens and Equus fossilis, the only ones hitherto 

 detected in Britain, from any characters deducible from 

 their known fossil remains. 



There are many specimens, however, that cannot be 

 satisfactorily distinguished from the corresponding parts 

 of the existing species, Equus caballus, which, with the 

 Wild Ass, may be the sole existing survivors of the nume- 

 rous representatives of the genus Equus in the Europseo- 



* ' Medals of Creaton,' 1844, vol. ii. p. 40. 



