102 NATURAL HISTORY. 



Sweden it was formerly used to draw sledges, but on account 

 of the facility of escape offered to criminals by its great speed, 

 the use of it was forbidden under high penalties. The skin of 

 the Elk is so tough that a regiment of soldiers was furnished 

 with waistcoats made of its hide, which could scarcely be pene- 

 trated by a ball. 



Family II. Equidse. (Lat. Equus, a Horse. Horse kind.) 



EQUUS. 



Caballus (Lat. a Saddle-horse.) 



We now arrive at the Pachydermata, or thick-skinned ani- 

 mals, which do not chew the cud. The first on the list is the 

 HORSE, an animal too well known in all its varieties to need 

 much description. The ancient war-horse, so magnificently 

 described in the book of Job, is well represented by that most 

 wonderful head in the British Museum, a fragment from the 

 Temple of Minerva at Athens. The ancients never appeared 

 to ride on the horse to battle, but to fight from small open 

 chariots, to which two or more horses were harnessed. 



