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ORDER PACHYDERMA TA. FAMILY Sdipedes. 



THE HORSE (Equus cahallus, Linn.) 



The history of the horse, as regards its original or natural 

 locality, and the period of its first subjugation, is very obscure. 

 From the Scriptures we learn that it is of Eastern origin 5 and 

 they render the inference very probable that the Egyptians were 

 the first who reduced it to servitude. The earliest notice of the 

 horse occurs about six hundred and fifty years after the Deluge, 

 when the Egyptians " brought their cattle to Joseph, who gave 

 them bread in exchange for horses and for the flocks," &c. 

 Very soon afterwards we read that the venerable patriarch 

 Jacob, when dying in Egypt, addressing his sons, said, " Dan 

 shall be a serpent by the way, an adder in the path, that biteth 

 the horse's heels, so that his rider shall fall backward 3" and 

 it is remarkable that this early allusion to the horse refers to 

 him as being ridden, and not as drawing a chariot. When 

 the body of Jacob was removed by his son Joseph from Egypt 

 to Canaan for burial, we are told that " there went up with 

 him both chariots and horsemen." As it appears then from 

 these notices, as well as from the employment of numerous 

 chariots by Pharaoh in pursuit of the Israelites, and from the 

 testimony of the earliest profane writers, that the Egyptians first 

 reduced the horse to obedience, it is to their country, or at least 

 to those parts of Africa which were in close relation to it, that 

 we may reasonably look for its primitive habitat. The long- 

 admitted superiority of the horses of Arabia is no evidence that 

 they were originally placed in that arid country -, and there 

 is great reason to conclude that it was not until a comparatively 



