CHAPTER V 

 HOOFED ANIMALS HORSES, OXEN, AND SWINE 



THE animals which form the subject of this chapter are gregarious 

 animals, that is to say, they live in herds when in a wild state. 

 Further, they too, like the mice and rabbits, etc., are harassed by 

 carnivorous animals, such as lions, tigers, wolves and so on. 

 Being defenceless, their only chance of escape is by flight, and 

 hence they have acquired great running powers. 



The ancestors of these animals, as the records of fossils show, 

 were very small creatures, and, among other things, differed from 

 their descendants in having five toes on each foot. Gradually 

 these have become reduced in number to a single toe, as in the case 

 of the horse, and four toes as in the ox and its relatives. But of 

 these four toes only two are functional, or serve to support the 

 body, the remaining two being now too shrunken to reach the 

 ground. These toes, both in the ox and horse, are peculiar in 

 that they are encased each in a large box-like " hoof " of horn, 

 which is nothing more than an enormously developed nail or 

 claw. 



The horse, with its relatives the ass and the zebra, is unique 

 among mammals in having but a single functional toe, and this 

 answers to the third or middle finger and toe of the human hand 

 and foot. Our nail answers to the hoof. But to bring home the 

 really remarkable characters of the horse's limbs, they should be 

 compared in some detail with those of the human subject. Take 

 the fore-limb of the horse and the arm of man, for instance 

 (Fig. 7)- The upper arm, the region from the shoulder to the 

 elbow' of man, is in the horse concealed, only the elbow appearing 

 below the trunk : that region of the human arm which lies between 

 the elbow and the wrist answers to the " leg " of the horse from 

 the elbow to the " knee/' which is in reality the wrist. That 

 portion of the third finger which lies embedded in the palm of the 



