8 DEVELOPMENT OF THE MODERN HORSE 



technically called ARTIODACTYLS. The artiodactyls and 

 perissodactyls together form, next to man, by far the most important 

 order of the class MAMMALIA, which includes all animals which 

 bear their young alive and nourish them after birth with milk. 



Distribution and Natural Instincts 



The horse family is found native at present in only a very small 

 part of the world, the horse proper being confined to a very re- 

 stricted portion of western Asia and eastern Russia, while his 

 cousins, the ass and zebra, extend southward into Africa and spread 

 over a large portion of that continent. No hoofed animals of any 

 kind originated in Australia. The Western Hemisphere, while it 

 does not present any living descendants of native horses, abounds 

 as does no other part of the world in fossil remains of extinct an- 

 cestral species of the horse group. These fossil remains are found 

 from Patagonia to Escholz Bay, but are most abundant in the 

 ancient fresh-water lake region of the present states of Wyoming 

 and Montana in the United States. Their presence there, and 

 their undisputable relationship to the modern horse furnishes a very 

 strong proof of land communication between America and the 

 Asiatic continent during a former geological period. 



The natural instincts of the horse are characteristic and striking. 

 His home is the desert. He does not ordinarily frequent the 

 fertile plains which he would necessarily share with other grazing 

 animals in large numbers ; but rather avoids the companionship of 

 other species and seeks the solitudes of vast expanses of barren 

 plains, where his powers of locomotion make it possible for him to 

 thrive where few other animals can live. He travels over firm, 

 hard surfaces with great facility, but instinctively avoids the swamp 

 and morass. He shuns the forest and thicket and keeps to the 

 open plain. He does not trust to escape danger in concealment, 



' ' / have never sold anything that gave such universal satisfaction as Bick,- 

 more's Gall Cure in my 20 years as a merchant. 



IV. R. Kimball, Sherman, Texas. " 



