The Horse, as Comrade and Friend 



you. You calm him, but he is quite agitated 

 about it, whatever it may be. You still don't 

 hear anything, but he does, and has directed 

 his pricked ears to your left, where he knows 

 the danger lies. He is in cover, and his 

 hereditary instincts are aroused. He has not 

 become sufficiently accustomed to forest life 

 to be educated to the fact that no real dangers 

 lurk for horses here. Tlie myriad escapes of 

 all those far-away ancestors, right down to the 

 Uttle hipparion, have left this surviving descen- 

 dent amply equipped with all the hereditary 

 defences that not only kept the hne unbroken, 

 but evolved the splendid alarm apparatus of 

 the horse's ear, mth the pivots automatically 

 and instantaneously directing the ears to the 

 danger, whatever its situation, without inter- 

 fering with the direction of the horse's flight. 

 In a flight for life, this evolved provision means 

 many seconds gained, where seconds count for 

 life or death. Disciple is worth observing and 

 studying as a product of evolution, and of the 

 survival of the flttest. 



Now even you can hear something ; the 

 snapping of twigs and little sticks ; the hurried 

 rush of tiny feet through bracken ; and away 

 in the opening, dark against the sky, appears 

 a greyish red arch of palpitating living things. 

 It is a herd of startled deer ; does and fawns 

 first, and stags behind. There is high bracken 

 on the raised sides of the sunk grass track you 



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