from a single species, or that time, soil, and climate could have produced 

 so prodigious a diversity. To account for it, then, I think we must 

 come to the conclusion — and I am not the first that has come to it — 

 that there must have existed originally a great number of closely allied 

 species capable of commixture, and of producing a fertile offspring. 

 Such is certainly the case with the ox and the dog, and probably even 

 with the human race itself. 



For this inference a good deal of evidence might be produced. 

 Thus language countenances the theory. In every original tongue of 

 countries in which the horse appears to have been indigenous, as far as 

 I have been able to discover, it has a peculiar and distinct name. Thus, 

 it has a distinct name in Greek, in Latin, in German, in the Celtic 

 tongues, in Persian, in Arabic, in Sanscrit, in the languages of the 

 South of India, in the Hindu-Chinese tongues, and in the languages of 

 the Malayan Islands. Sometimes it has two names, a native with a foreign 

 synonyme, as in Irish or Gaelic and in Javanese — in the first case the 

 synonyme being Latin, and in the last, Sanscrit. In countries in which 

 the horse had unquestionably no existence, it naturally takes its name 

 from the language of the people who introduced it. In South and 

 Central America, and the Philippine Lslands, the name is Spanish, taken 

 from the Latin; and in North America and Australia, it is English. 

 There are two broad distinctions in the horse — the full-sized one 

 and the pony — which seem to point, at least, at two distinct aboriginal 

 races or osulating species. No change of climate or skill in breeding, 

 supposing there be no crossing, will convert the one into the other. In 

 most countries both exist together; but in some, one of them only exists. 

 Thus, in the intertropical countries which lie between India and China, 

 and in the islands of the Indian Archipelago, the pony only exists, 

 and the full-sized horse is as unknown as the ass or the camel. In the 

 languages of these countries, consequently, there is but one name for the 

 horse, while in the languages of Hindustan and Persia there are distinct 

 terms for the horse and the pony. In Arabia the horses are all com- 

 paratively small and do not materially differ in size ; so there are no 

 ponies, and, consequently, in the copious Arabic language, no distinct 

 terms for horse and pony. It may be suspected that the same was the 

 case in some of the poorer and remoter parts of the British islands, for 

 in the Celtic languages the pony has no other name than " little horse." 

 Soil and climate, independent of the care of man in feeding and 

 breeding, of which, in the ruder states of society, the hoi'se receives little 

 or none, seem to have very little influence on its size, form, or disposi- 



