214 SIR WILLIAM FLOWER 



in the modern and now generally accepted doctrines 

 of Natural History." In the first part of the book 

 he traced the history of the group now represented 

 by the tapirs, rhinoceroses, and horses step by step, 

 as shown in the fragments preserved from former 

 ages, farther and farther back into time, these 

 differences continually becoming less marked, and 

 ultimately blending together, if not into one common 

 ancestor, at all events into forms so closely alike in 

 all essentials that no reasonable doubt can be held 

 as to their common origin. The second part of 

 the book is devoted to the anatomy of the horse 

 and its nature and habits. In his second chapter 

 he was at pains to add : — 



Those who have the care of horses in a domesticated state 

 may learn a practical lesson from what has been here said as to 

 their habits in a state of nature. All existing species of the family 

 are dwellers in dry, open, and generally elevated plains. None 

 are inhabitants of gloomy forests or reeking marshes. Fresh air, 

 dryness, and light are essential to their well-being. Darkness 

 and damp, which some animals delight and thrive in, are utterly 

 uncongenial to horses. The neglect of this consideration, so 

 frequently seen in the construction and management of stables, is 

 not only unkind to the animals, but very costly to their owners. 



He noted that in Egypt there was no trace of 

 the domestication of the horse before 1900 B.C., 

 long after the ass had become a servant of man 

 in the valley of the Nile. Bailey s Magazine, a 

 periodical devoted almost entirely to hunting, riding, 

 and driving, in a review of the book on practical 

 modern lines, says : '' Especially would we commend 



