THE NEANDERTHAL SKULL. 59 



tremity of prehistoric man. If he meant 

 a quadruped with a bushy tail like a horse, 

 he possibly got the idea from a legend 

 once current in Kent, where it was long 

 believed that the inhabitants of Strood, 

 near Rochester, for having insulted the 

 rebel Achbishop Thomas a Becket, by 

 cutting off the tails of his horses, were 

 cursed so vigorously by the angry Primate, 

 that their descendants were ever after 

 " lorn with horses' tails ! " * 



If, on the contrary, he means a tufted tail 

 like the ass, he may have obtained the 

 idea from the exact rendering of Genesis 

 xvi. 12, where it is foretold that Ishmael 

 would be " a wild ass among men." 



Professor Huxley, in his Lay Sermons, 

 shows that the principal difference between 

 the horse and the ass is two-fold : first, in 

 the ass having callosities in the two fore- 

 legs, whereas the horse has them on all 

 four legs ; second, in the former having a 

 tufted, while the latter has a bushy tail. 



* Fuller's Church History, ii. 7, 22. 



