818 MODIFICATIONS OF ASPECTS OF ORGANIC NATURE 



from tlie steppe droves. But it is also true that the small number 

 of naturalists of the first rank who have travelled over the Russian 

 steppes, viz. the younger Gmelin, Pallas, and Middendorff, are of 

 the contrary opinion ; and that whilst acknowledging that the 

 steppe horse, like, perhaps, all other domestic animals except the 

 sheep, may lapse into feral habits, they hold to the view that the 

 true 'Tarpan' is a descendant of the pristine wild stock, whilst the 

 ' Musin ' is but a steppe horse run wild ^. 



The main argument for the descent of the wild horses of the 

 steppes from the domestic or semi-domesticated stocks of the 

 Turanian nomads, rests on the fact that a great variety of colour 

 is observed to exist in the free droves. This, however, appears to 

 me to prove nothing more than that the tame and wild varieties 

 breed freely together 2. I myself, long ago, succeeded in obtaining 

 numbers of feral rabbits, parti-coloured with white, on an area 

 already occupied by the ordinary English wild rabbit. The feral 

 rabbits never attained an equality in numbers with the gray stock, 

 but being spared in shooting, whilst the wild stock was not, they 

 maintained themselves for a considerable number of years in what 

 was for themselves as against predatory attacks of various kinds an 

 only too conspicuous prominence. But nobody would have argued 



^ See Middenrlorff, 'Sibirische Relse,' iv. 2, 2, pp. 1308-1321 ; Gmelin, 'Reise 

 durch RuRsland,' i. 45, 1770, and for drawing Tab. ix. 



It may be well, for several reasons, to give the exact facts as to the opinions which 

 Pallas held at various times respecting the feral or the truly and aboriginally wild 

 character of the so-called wild horse of the Steppes. In 1 769 (see ' Voyages de 

 Pallas,' French translation, 1788, vol. i. p. 324) Pallas inclined to the view of the 

 Tarpan being simply a feral race; and he repeated this opinion in 1773 (see I.e., 

 vol. V. p. 90). But in 1776, in the eleventh fascicle of his ' Spicilegia Zoologica,* p. 5, 

 he expresses himself to the following effect : *Equi feri in campis Bessarabicis circaque 

 Tanaiin et per omnem Tatariam magnam in desertis vagantur gregatim, magnam 

 quidem partem fugitivis Nomadum equis permixti atque multiplicati ; ideoque versi- 

 colores ; aliqui tamen hahitu, toto a cicuratis adeo discrepantes ut primitiva de stirpe 

 feros esse duhitari vix posset. Conf. de iis qui ad Tana'in atque in eremo inter Volgani 

 et Jaikum habentur S. G. Gmelin [the younger Gmelin], Reisen durch Russland, 

 vol i. p. 44 seq., et Itinerarii nostri, vol. i. p. 211 ; et vol. iii. part ii. p. 513.' See 

 also the posthumously (1831) published ' Zoographia Rosso-Asiatica,' vol. i. p. 260. 



To these references I would add the * Geographische Gescbichte,' i. p. 181, 1778, 

 of the zoologist Zimmermann. Writing only two years after the appearance of 

 Pallas"s Memoir just cited, Zimmermann not only entirely accepted the view given 

 above in italics, but 1. c, p. 204, speaks in not exaggerated terms of Pallas as ' der 

 erste aller von mir gekannten Reisen den.* 



^ The Mongols and Kalmucks, from superstitious motives, take great pains to secure 

 various colours for their domestic horses, sheep, and goats. Hence some of the variety 

 in the feral horses. See Pallas, 'Mongol. Volk,' i. pp. 117, 178, 179. 



