398 SOLIPEDIA. 



Asiatic continent during the pliocene period. The species 

 of Equus which existed during that geological period in 

 both North and South America, appears to have been 

 blotted out of the Fauna of those continents before the 

 introduction of Man. The aborigines whom the Spanish 

 Conquestadors found in possession of Peru and Mexico, 

 had no tradition or hieroglyphic indicative of such a quad- 

 ruped, and the Horses that the invaders had imported 

 from Europe were viewed with astonishment and alarm. 



The researches of Mr. Darwin and Dr. Lund have, how- 

 ever, indisputably proved that the genus Equus was repre- 

 sented in South America during the pliocene period by 

 a species (Equus curmdens) which I have shown to be 

 distinct* both from the European fossils and the existing 

 species. Fossil remains of the Horse have likewise been 

 discovered in North America. The geographical range 

 of the genus Equus at the pliocene period was thus more 

 extensive than that of Rhinoceros, of which both the ex- 

 tinct and existing species are confined to the continents 

 of the Old World of geography. The Horse, in its ancient 

 distribution over both hemispheres of the globe, resembled 

 the Mastodon, and appears to have become extinct in 

 North America at the same time with the Mastodon 

 giganteus, and in South America with the Mastodon An- 

 dium and the Megatherium. Well may Mr. Darwin say, 

 " It is a marvellous event in the history of animals, that 

 a native kind should have disappeared, to be succeeded 

 in after ages by the countless herds introduced with the 



o / 



Spanish colonist l"^ 



* 'Catalogue of Fossil Mammalia in the Museum of the Royal College of 

 Surgeons,' 4to., 1844, p. 235. 



f- ' Voyages of the Adventure and Beagle,' vol. iii. p. 150. 



