146 HE HORSE AND HIS PEDIGREE. 



tlie solid hoof wliicli tlius distingiiislies the horse 

 Idiid as 51 group from all other types of less nohlo 

 quadrupeds is in reality a single toe; the four 

 other toes which the ancestors of the horse origi- 

 nally inherited from the common progenitor of 

 the whole great inannnalian group have heen grad- 

 ually lost through disuse in the course of long and 

 slow ages, and only a solitary large and heavy nail 

 at present remains in the horse and the donkey, 

 in strict adaptation to the native habits of the 

 great race as rapid scourers over the free plains of 

 a wide, untill(Hl, and grass-clad continent. 



The earliest recognizable ancestor of the mod- 

 ern horse whose bones geological research has 

 succeeded in disentond)ing for our inspection from 

 the eocene rocks of Western America was a small 

 creature no bigger than a fox, whose fore-feet had 

 four large toes and a fifth much smaller one, while 

 on the hind-feet the lunnber of toes was, even at 

 that comparatively early period, reduced to three. 

 These pretty little i)rimitive ponies must have 

 stood, in point of size, to our modern Arabs in 

 somewhat the same comparative relation as a toy- 

 terrier now stands to a Cuban bloodhound or an 

 English mastiff. They were, in short, mere baby- 

 horses, Tom Thumb predecessors of our own 

 gigantic Suffolk punches. Hut the world waa all 

 before them, on which to feed and giow, and the 

 race still retained the plasticity of youth, wnich 



