590 
NATURE 
[APRIL 21, 1904 
THE MULTIPLE ORIGIN OF HORSES AND 
PONIES. 
ITHERTO it has been generally assumed that wild 
horses have been long extinct, that all domestic horses 
are the descendants of a single wild species, and that, 
except in size, ponies in no essential points differ from 
horses. 
Now that systematic attempts are being made to improve 
native breeds of horses in various parts of the world, it is 
obviously desirable to settle once for all whether, as is 
alleged, occidental as well as oriental and African races 
and breeds have sprung from the same wild progenitors, 
and more especially if all ponies are merely dwarf speci- 
mens of one or more of the recognised domestic breeds of 
horses. 
To be in a position to arrive at a conclusion as to the 
origin of the various kinds of domestic horses, and at the 
same time ffnd an answer to the important and oft-repeated 
question, What is a pony? one must clear up as far as 
possible the later chapters in the history of that section 
of the Equidz to which the true horses belong. 
It is generally admitted that the ancestors of the living 
Equidz reached the Old World from the New, the later 
immigrants crossing by land bridges in the vicinity of 
Behring Straits. If horses came originally from the New 
World, to the New World we may first turn for inform- | 
ation as to their remote progenitors. 
According to recent inquiries, North America possessed 
in pre-Glacial times at least nine perfectly distinct wild 
species of Equida. Some of these were of a considerable 
size—e.g. Equus complicatus of the southern and middle 
western States, and E. occidentalus of California were as 
large as a small cart-horse. Others were intermediate in 
size—e. g. 
least one—E. tau of Mexico—was extremely small. Some 
of the American pre-Glacial Equidz were characterised by 
very large heads and short strong limbs, some by small 
heads and slender limbs; and though the majority con- 
formed to the true horse type, two or three were constructed 
on the lines of asses and zebras. 
When true horses first made their appearance in America 
the climate and the land connections between the Old 
World and the New were very different from what they are 
to-day. One result of these differences was that before the 
close of the Pliocene period—i.e. prior to the great Ice age 
—it was possible for American horses to find their way into 
Asia and thence into Europe and Africa. One of the earlier 
immigrants (Equus stenonis) has left its remains in the 
Pliocene deposits of Britain, France, Switzerland, Italy, 
and the north of Africa. While E. stenonis was extending 
its range into Europe and Africa, two others (E. sivalensis 
and E. namadicus) were finding their way into India, and 
yet other species were doubtless settling in eastern Europe 
and Central Asia. 
It may hence be safely assumed that as Africa now con- 
tains several species of zebras, Europe at the beginning of 
the Pleistocene period was inhabited by several species of 
horses. 
We know that before the beginning of the historic age 
horses had become extinct in North America, but we have 
not yet ascertained what was the fate of the equine species 
which reached, or were evolved in, the Old World before 
or during the great Ice age. It is believed by some 
paleontologists that the Indian species, E. sivalensis and 
E. namadicus, became extinct, and that E. stenonis gave 
rise through one variety (E. robustus) to the modern 
domestic breeds, and by another (E. ligeris) to the Burchell 
group of zebras. FE. sivalensis, unlike E. stenonis, but like 
the still earlier three-toed horse Hipparion and certain pre- 
historic South American species, was characterised by a 
depression in front of the orbit for a facial gland (probably 
similar to the scent-gland of the stag), and usually by large 
first premolar (wolf) teeth in the upper jaw. In some 
recent horses having eastern blood in their veins there 
seems to be a vestige of the pre-orbital depression, and in 
some of the horses of south-eastern Asia (e.g. Java and 
Sulu ponies), as in some zebras (e.g. Grévy’s zebra and a 
1 By Dr. J. Cossar Ewart, F.R.S. Abridged from Tans, Highland 
and Agricultural Society of Scotland, vol. xvi., 1904. 
NO. 1799, VOL. 69| 
E. =) Ss Hh c ce | . . . mn 
fraternis of the south-eastern States; and at | site that yet other species inhabited south and middle- 
zebra of the Burchell type found near Lake Baringo), there 
are large functional first premolars. It is hence possibie 
that lineal but somewhat modified descendants of E. siva- 
lensis of the Indian Pliocene may still survive, and that 
E. sivalensis was a lineal descendant of s1ipparion. 
We are, however, more concerned with the ancestors of 
the domestic horses of Europe and North Africa than with 
oriental horses. 
From osseous remains already found we know horses 
were widely distributed over Europe during the Pleistocene 
period, and that they were especially abundant in the south 
of France in post-Glacial times. It has not yet, however, 
been determined how many species of horses inhabited 
Europe during and immediately after the Ice age, nor yet 
to which of the pre-Glacial species prehistoric horses were 
genetically related. Bones and teeth from deposits and 
caves in the south of England seem to indicate that during 
the Pleistocene period. several species of horses ranged over” 
the west of. Europe. The Pleistocene beds of Essex have 
yielded bones and teeth of a large-headed, heavily built 
horse, which probably sometimes measured more than 14 
hands (56 inches) at the withers. From the “* elephant 
bed ’’ at Brighton portions of a slender-limbed horse have 
been recovered, and Kent’s cave, near Torquay, has yielded 
numerous fragments of two varieties or species which 
differed somewhat from the Essex and Brighton species. 
The ‘* elephant-bed ’’ horse has hitherto been described as 
very small, but if one is to judge by the bones in the 
British Museum it may very well have reached a height of 
50 or even 52 inches (12-2 or 13 hands). The Kent’s cave 
horses were probably from 13 to 14 hands high. One in 
its build approached the Essex horse, the other the slender- 
limbed species of the ‘‘ elephant bed’’ at Brighton. If 
there were two or more species in Pleistocene times in the 
south of England (then part of the Continent), it is prob- 
Europe and the north of Africa. 
As already mentioned, horses were extremely abundant in 
the south of France in the not very remote post-Glacial 
period.’ Evidence of the existence of large herds we have 
at Solutré, where for a number of years there was an open- 
air Paleolithic encampment. Near the Solutré encamp- 
ment (which lies in the vicinity of the Saéne, about mid- 
way between Chalons and Lyons), the bones of horses* and 
other beasts of the chase were sufficiently abundant to form 
a sort of rampart around part of the settlement. It is 
difficult to say how many species of horses are represented 
at Solutré, but there seems no doubt that the majority 
belonged to a stout, long-headed, but short-limbed animal, 
measuring about 54 inches (13-2 hands) at the withers. 
Though of smaller size, the typical Solutré horse had nearly 
as large joints and hoofs as the Essex Pleistocene species. 
Like the Essex horse, it seems to have been specially 
adapted for living in low-lying marshy ground in the 
vicinity of forests, and for feeding during part of the year 
on coarse grasses, shrubs, roots, and other hard substances, 
for the crushing of which large teeth set in long powerful 
jaws were indispensable. 
That lightly built as well as stout species existed in post- 
Glacial as in Pleistocene times is made evident by bones 
fcund in caves and by drawings and sculptures made by 
Paleolithic hunters. Of the existence of two kinds of 
horses in post-Glacial times, practically identical with the 
stout and slender-limbed Pleistocene species, the cave of 
Reilhac, near Lyons, is especially eloquent. -It is, however, 
mainly by the engravings on the walls of caves in the 
Dordogne, Gard, and other districts in the south of France 
that the existence in late Paleolithic times of various kinds 
of light and heavy species of horses is made manifest. 
In the cave of La Mouthe, e.g., two horses are incised on 
the same panel—perhaps by the same hand—one of which 
(Fig. 1) has a very long head attached nearly at right 
angles to a short thick neck, while the other has a small 
head, Arab-like ears, and a long slender neck such as we 
are wont to associate with racehorses. 
In the Combarelles cave (Commune of Tayac), the walls 
1 An account of the prebistoric horses of Europe, by Dr. Robert Munro, 
will be found in the Archaeological Journal, vol. lix. No. 234. 
2 Toussaint, of the Lyons Veterinary College, believes that at Solutré there 
were fragments of at least 100,000 horses, all of which had been ‘used as 
food. 
