152 THE HORSE AND HIS PEDIGREE. 



long hairs at the end alone ; whereas in the horse's 

 the loiiof hairs heijin from the very sunmiit of the 

 tail, and give it that peculiarly shaggy and noble 

 appearance so very distinctive of the high-bied 

 creature. INIoreover, the donkey and zebra group 

 have horny patches on the fore-legs only, while 

 the true horses have them on both fore and hind 

 legs. Till very lately no intermediate form be- 

 tween these two groups was known to exist, and 

 the whole modern horse family was arbitiarily 

 divided into a couple of distinct and separate bod- 

 ies, — the true horses on the one hand, and the 

 asses, zebras, and quaggas on the other. Quite 

 recently, however, the indefatigable Russian trav- 

 eller Pi'jevalsky has discovered among the high 

 table-lands of Central Asia, on the Siberian side, a 

 new intermediate connecting link, half way in size 

 and appearance between the horses and the don- 

 keys, with a coarse head and neck, iind weak in 

 his points, yet with the long hairs of his tail nei- 

 ther springing from the very top, as in the liorse, 

 nor collected in a tuft at the bottom, as in the 

 donkey, but scattered about in the upper portion 

 and thicker and tuftier in the brush below. This 

 undoubtedl}^ intermediate sj.ecies — a half-way 

 house between horsedom and donkeydom — which 

 has been named, after its discoverer, "Prjevalsky's 

 horse," represents in all probability a late common 

 ancestor of the horses and the donkeys, or perhaps 



