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NA TURE 



[December 25, 1902 



represents the Scythian horses, which continued to be of a small 

 size down to Strabo's time, and they were derived either from 

 he tarpan or Trezevalsky's horse. The Mongolian pony, though 

 surefooted and enduring, is slow of pace. Neither China, Siam 

 nor Burmah have any indigenous horse answering to the blood 

 horse. India could never breed horses, says Marco Polo, in 

 whose time India was supplied either with Mongolian ponies 

 from Yunnan or with Arabs from south Persia, Aden and other 

 Arabian ports. These Arabs fetched enormous prices, equivalent 

 to 2CO/. It has hitherto been universally held that Arabia is 

 the original home of the blood horse. This is a baseless 

 assumption. Jn the Old Testament, the Arabs are never 

 mentioned as riding anything but camels and asses. Though 

 the author of Job knew of the war horse, yet Job did not own a 

 single horse, his equine possessions consisting of 500 she asses. 

 Herodotus (vii. 87) enumerates the nations (including the 

 Libyans) that supplied cavalry to Xerxes' host, but the Arabs 

 only furnish a camel corps. Agathatchides (cited by Sttabo) 

 describes the Arabs as camel keepers. 



Finally, Strabo [/lor. a.d. i) expressly states that neither the 

 peoples of Arabia Felix nor those of Arabia Petrsea bred horses. 

 Naturally, then, Scaurus after defeating the Arab king Aretasput 

 on his coins Aretas leading his camel. It is clear, then, that 

 down to the Christian era the Arabs bred no horses. It is 

 therefore clear that though the Persian kings in the fifth century 

 B.i . bred the largest and best horses in Asia, these were not of 

 an Arab strain. These horses were kept largely in Armenia, 

 and are described by Strabo as similar to the Parthian horses, 

 and as differing from the horses bred in Greece and the other 

 kinds of horses known in the Roman empire. There can be 

 little doubt that they were the same horses as Marco Polo found 

 in great numbers in Armenia (1270 a.d.) known as Turquans, 

 the Turcoman ponies well known in Persia to-day. The Persian 

 horses cannot, then, have been the ancestors of the thoroughbred, 

 though it is quite possible that their superiority was due to 

 their having a cross of thoroughbred blood, for already by 900 

 B.C. Solomon imported horses from Egypt (1 Kings x.), and 

 "so for all the kings of Syria and for all the kings of the 

 Hittites" Egypt could not breed horses, neither could she have 

 got them from the Arabs, who bred none even 1000 years later. 

 But she could and did get them from the Libyans, who from 

 the dawn of history are masters of the most famous horses. 

 Cyrene sent the best horses to the games of Greece (Pindar, 

 Pyth. iv., &c. ). It is noteworthy that it was in the same century 

 as the founding of Cyrene that the four horse chariot and the 

 racehorse were added to the Olympic events. The Phoenician 

 settlers at Carthage found the Libyans using these beautiful 

 horses, and when they struck coins placed a horse or a horse- 

 head on them as the badge of Libya, and used a similar type 

 on their coins struck in Sicily, whither, doubtless, they carried 

 the Libyan breed. This accounts for the extraordinary fame of 

 the horses of Etna and Syracuse and the famous steeds of 

 Tarentum. It is now clear that the Arabs never owned a good 

 horse until they had become masters of North Africa and the 

 Barbary horses, from whom are sprung our own racing stock 

 through Lord Godolphin's Barb. North Africa, therefore, and 

 not Arabia or any other part of Asia is the original home of the 

 thoroughbred. 



Now, though the pedigree of the cart-horse type can be traced 

 to the coarse, thickset little horses of Europe and Asia, the 

 -wild ancestor of the Barb is yet to seek, for Africa has no 

 wild horse, such as tarpan or Piezevalsky's, though she has an 

 ass and four zebras, including the quaaga, now extinct. Can 

 the Barb be sprung wholly or in part from a zebra? Arab foals 

 at birth constantly have zehra markings, sometimes retained 

 when full grown, as by Prof. Ewart's Arab filly Fatima. Strabo, 

 too, notices that the horses of the Libyan Garamantes have 

 longer hoofs than any other horses. Prof. Ewart's. hybrids from 

 Burchell's zebra and various mares show the markings, not of a 

 Burchell's zebra, but of a Somaliland zebra, from which it has 

 been inferred that the remote ancestor of both Equ'm caballus 

 and Burchell's zebra was striped like the Somaliland and 

 mountain zebra. But is it necessary to go back so far ? May 

 not the Somaliland zebra stripes in the hybrid be due to the 

 circumstance that the dam in each case had a certain amount of 

 Barb blood in her, which was derived from either the Somaliland 

 zebra or a closely allied species? He (Prof. Ridgeway) had 

 crossed a Muscovy drake with a common white duck, derived 

 from the common wild duck, with the result that all the offspring 

 are coloured, and their colouring resembles that of the mallard. 



No one would say that the hybrids show a reversion to a remote 

 common ancestor of both mallard and Muscovy, for it is obvious 

 that the colouring is simply that of the white duck's immediate 

 ancestors. Authorities like Captain Hayes have pointed out the 

 great similarity in form between Burchell's and the Somaliland 

 zebra to a well-bred horse, i.e. a horse that has Barb blood in 

 him. He therefore suggested that the Barbary horse, from 

 which he had shown all the fine horses of the world have 

 sprung, was derived either from the zebra of north-east Africa 

 or, as is more likely, from some very closely allied species, now 

 extinct, which, like Prezevalsky's horse, may have had castors 

 on its hind legs like Equus caballus. 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 INTELLIGENCE. 



Mr. A. S. Green has been appointed professor of 

 dyeing at Yorkshire College, in succession to the late Prof. 

 Hummel. 



The University of California is about, says Science, to erect 

 a physiological laboratory at a cost of 25,000 dollars. It will be 

 under the charge of Dr. Jacques Loeb. 



The royal assent was given to the Education Act, 1902, on 

 Thursday last. The Act comes into operation, except as 

 expressly provided, on March 26, 1903, or such other day, not 

 being more than eighteen months later, as the Board of 

 Education may appoint. The Act does not extend to Scotland 

 or Ireland, or for the present to London. 



Bedford College for Women, London, and the Sanitary 

 Institute have in conjunction arranged a conference on the 

 subject of hygiene for schools, to be held at the College on 

 January 21, 1903. Prof. C. S. Sherrington, F.R.S., Dr. Gow, 

 Mr. Michael Sadler, Prof. Adams and others are expected to 

 speak. Further particulars and cards of admission can be 

 obtained either from the Sanitary Institute or from Bedford 

 College. 



The special committee appointed to consider the needs of 

 South Africa in regard to technical education, with special 

 reference to the Transvaal, have, says the Chemist and Druggist, 

 submitted a lengthy report, and state they are convinced that 

 there is a great demand, especially in Johannesburg, for technical 

 education. This demand can best be met, in their opinion, by 

 establishing an institution providing the highest kind of training 

 in arts and sciences. They recommend that all students, before 

 admission to the institution, pass an examination of a standard 

 equal to the matriculation of the Cape University. Complete 

 courses should be provided in the new institution, the committee 

 think, in mining, mechanical and electrical engineering, metal- 

 lurgy and chemical engineering, civil and sanitary engineering, 

 and architecture. 



In his paper on French rural education, read before th e 

 Society of Arts on December 10, Mr. Cloudesley Brereton 

 explained the part taken by the primary and secondary schools 

 in the agricultural education of the nation. In France, in some 

 communes, one person in every four is a land proprietor, and 

 the aim in the primary schools has been to give the pupil some 

 grasp of the ^principles underlying the science of agriculture. 

 The teacher is not so much supposed to follow implicitly the 

 departmental programme, but rather to choose those portions 

 which best suit his own particular district. There is still 

 doubt in the minds of French educational authorities whether 

 the scientific or the agricultural side of the instruction should 

 predominate in the instruction given in primary schools. The 

 teachers in these schools are themselves trained by professors of 

 agriculture in the training colleges, and though the course of 

 instruction is a good one, it might with advantage be more 

 practical. In the secondary schools of France, agricultural 

 education has an insignificant place, but the work done in this 

 direction by means of lectures and evening classes carried on 

 in connection with old boys' clubs and other organisations is 

 very great. 



An important article, by Mr. W. M. Webb, on the progress 

 and interpretation of " nature-knowledge," especially in relation 

 to the experience gained at the Nature-Study Exhibition held 

 last August in London, appears in the October issue of the 

 Record of Technical and Secondary Education. After referring 



NO. I730, YOL. 



6/] 



