THE HORSE IN SCOTLAND 69 



little doubt that the horses represented in this deep deposit 

 entered Scotland during one of the milder inter-glacial periods 

 which broke the continuity of the Age of Ice. 



Deposits of later date also afford evidence of the presence 

 of horses at an early stage in the development of modern 

 Scotland. Bones of two horses, along with those of the Wolf, 

 the Reindeer and the Fox, were discovered in a rock fissure 

 of post-glacial age in the Pentland Hills; the marl mosses 

 of Forfarshire, according to Lyell, entomb many of their 

 remains; and the bones of horses were found in 1868 em- 

 bedded at the depth of between six and eight feet in a peat- 

 moss at Balgone near North Berwick. I have seen in the 

 Hunterian Museum in Glasgow a lower jaw and cannon- 

 bone found, probably in the river-gravels of the Clyde, during 

 excavations in Stockwell Street, Glasgow. These later relics, 

 however, have scarcely the same significance as those of the 

 Crofthead deposits, for it is possible that some of them may 

 represent the domesticated herds of the Neolithic inhabitants. 



What was the nature of the horse which inhabited 

 Scotland before the coming of man ? The Crofthead bones 

 were said to represent an animal with the essential char- 

 acteristics of the horse (Eqims caballus), but a third smaller 

 than ordinary horses of to-day. The solitary cannon-bone 

 of the Stockwell Street horse shows that it belonged to 

 a slender-limbed race, for its length is seven times its 

 breadth (the length being 238 mm. and the width at the 

 middle 34 mm.), a characteristic feature of a type of small 

 horse, designated by Professor Cossar Ewart the desert or 

 plateau type. This race frequented the valleys of Italy in the 

 preglacial Pliocene Period, and in Glacial times wandered 

 over the plains of France, and thence into the still-connected 

 land of Britain. From the remains found in various parts 

 of W 7 estern Europe, a fair estimate can be made of the 

 appearance of the Scottish predecessor of the domesticated 

 races. It was a small animal, as horses go, from about i2'2 

 to 14 hands, that is 50 to 56 inches, high at the shoulder, 

 with long slender limbs. Its head was small, its face fine 

 and narrow, with a straight profile. Of the colour of its coat 

 and the nature of its mane and tail, there is naturally no 

 direct evidence from the prehistoric remains, but Professor 

 Ewart is of opinion that it was closely related to a modern 



