December 7, 1905] 



NA TURE 



127 



southern blood, and if we allow for this it may be 

 asked whether there is sufficient justification for 

 separating- the " Celtic pony " as a distinct race, and 

 whether both do not consequently come under the 

 designation of E. caballus typicus. If he be right in 

 identifying the original unaltered tarpan with the 

 Mongolian wild pony (przewalskii), the author has 

 done good service, as he certainly has in pointing 

 out that the mouse-colour of the tarpan in the Moscow- 

 Museum is a sign of hybridism. Whether przewalskii 

 might not also be included under the name of E. c. 

 typicus is another question that may be left open. 



Turning to the author's fourth type — the Barb, 

 Arab, and thoroughbred — we find this standing out 

 in marked contrast to all the above, so that in any 

 case we have two main groups of domesticated 

 horses. The Barb type, as it may be called for 

 brevity, is a larger horse than the dun northern type, 

 with a more delicate, although long, head, prominent 

 nostrils, curiously sinuous profile, full and profuse 

 mane and tail, a colour which appears to be typicallj 

 bay, relieved frequently by a white star on the fore- 

 head and one or more white "stockings." The 

 occurrence of a depression in front of the eye-socket 

 (whether a remnant of the ancestral face-gland, or, as 

 some suppose, a point for muscular attachment is 

 immaterial) in the skull is admitted as a characteristic 

 of this type. From their large size these horses were 

 from the first used for riding, while their gentle dis- 

 position led to their being dominated by a nose-band 

 instead of a bit. All the dark-coloured horses of 

 Europe, notably the Shire horse, are believed to have 

 a more or less strong infusion of Barb or Arab blood, 

 which is, however, most predominant in the thorough- 

 bred. 



In thus dividing domesticated horses into two main 

 types, the northern dun and the larger southern bay, 

 Prof. Ridgeway will, we think, command the consent 

 of most naturalists. Whether, however, he is right 

 in regarding the full mane and tail of the Barb type 

 as an original feature and not one largely due to 

 domestication may be an open question. Doubt may 

 be also legitimately entertained as to whether he is 

 justified in making North Africa the birthplace of the 

 bay type. In the first place, there arises a suspicion 

 that he has been biased by a former theory (now 

 happily abandoned) that the Barb type is the de- 

 scendant of the Somali zebra (Eqitus grevyi). 

 Putting, however, this aside, it may be pointed out 

 that the author does not appear to give sufficient 

 weight to the fact that true wild horses are utterly 

 unknown in Ethiopian Africa, and that northern 

 Africa is but a small outlying part of the Holarctic 

 region, the fauna of which is to a great extent 

 identical with that of southern Europe and western 

 Asia. On these grounds, although we may admit 

 that the true Barb was the earliest representative of 

 the bay type to be domesticated, it seems extremely 

 improbable that the ancestral, and now extinct, form 

 of this race was confined to North Africa, while it is 

 much more likely that it ranged over a large extent 

 of south-western Asia in prehistoric times. 



To follow the author in his extremelv interesting 

 survey of the spread and modification of the domesti- 

 cated horse during historic times is unfortunately 

 quite impossible within the limits of our available 

 space, and we can only say that it will repay careful 

 reading. The early existence of the Barb type is 

 indicated by a figure of a Libyan woman riding one 

 of these horses, taken from a vase dating between 

 664 b.c. and 570 B.C. 



In conclusion, the present reviewer, who has been 

 so largely quoted (and by no means in an altogether 



NO. 1884, VOL. 73] 



friendly spirit) throughout the work, may perhaps be 

 permitted a few lines in which to explain his own 

 views on certain points. In the first place, he is 

 affirmed to have definitely assigned India as the birth- 

 place of the bay or Barb type ; but reference to the 

 original article (Knowledge and Scientific News, 

 August, 1904, p. 174) will show that he merely- 

 suggested the derivation of the " thoroughbred and 

 eastern breeds generally . . . from an extinct Indian 

 species, E. sivalensis." It is true that the expression 

 " eastern breeds generally " is somewhat too ex- 

 tensive, but it was meant to apply primarily to Turks 

 and Arabs; while as to E. sivalensis, the writer would 

 be the last to suggest that its range was limited to 

 India, and that it might not have had a wide dis- 

 tribution in Asia. In assigning the origin of the 

 Barb type to this or an allied fossil species rather 

 than to the European E. slenonis, which likewise 

 presents a pre-orbital depression in the skull, the 

 reviewer was influenced by the fact that the latter is 

 definitely known to have been succeeded in the pre- 

 historic and Pleistocene deposits of north-west Europe 

 by horses which lack that feature. Moreover, if, as 

 Prof. Ridgeway urges, the northern dun and the 

 southern and eastern bay types are essentially distinct, 

 what is more likely than that they should have been 

 respectively derived from Pliocene types of which one 

 is northern and the other eastern and possibly 

 southern ? As regards the main thesis — the existence 

 of the two aforesaid main distinct types of domesti- 

 cated horses — the reviewer is in perfect accord with 

 the author of the work before him. R. L. 



SIR J. S. BURDON-SANDERSON, BART., F.R.S. 



ON Thursday, November 23, in his seventy-seventh 

 year, this distinguished man passed quietly to 

 his rest after a protracted illness of some months. 

 His death removes from the University of Oxford 

 one of its greatest personalities, whilst biological 

 science, especially those branches immediately 

 associated with medicine — physiology and pathology — 

 has suffered an irreparable loss. The remarkable 

 tribute contained in the British Medical Journal issued 

 on December 2 shows the extent to which those who 

 an now working at these subjects honoured and 

 reverenced him as their master. 



He was born at Jesmond, Northumberland, in 

 December, 1828, being connected on both his father's 

 and his mother's side with men of great distinction ; 

 the details of his ancestry are cited in Mr. Francis 

 Galton's hereditary notes as one instance of those 

 family histories which show extraordinary mental 

 capacity or remarkable achievement distributed along 

 the ancestral line. He was never at a public school, 

 but was educated at home in that border county 

 which he always loved, and throughout his life he 

 manifested a special delight in sunlight, stretches of 

 wild moor, mountain streams, rocks, heather, wild 

 flowers, and wild birds. His powers of observation 

 and the interest with which he regarded all natural 

 objects were such that he might have become a 

 great naturalist, but his bent was evidently towards 

 medicine, and his parents, relinquishing their own 

 bias for the legal profession, sent him to Edinburgh 

 for a course of medical training. Goodsir and 

 Hughes Bennett were then the professors of anatomy 

 and physiology, and the latter seems to have exercised 

 great influence on the future physiologist, turning his 

 thoughts to cells and their living processes. 



He soon showed some of those characteristics which 

 stamp indelibly the scientific work of his life. Thus, 



