of Horse from Central Asia. 21 
size to an average horse, but rounder in shape, colour dun or 
bluish, other shades exceptional, with larger head than the 
Kirghiz horse (Topography of Orenburg, pt. i. p. 290, St. 
Petersburg, 1762). 
Gmelin remarks that the largest of the wild horses is 
scarcely to be compared for size with the smallest of domesti- 
cated breeds; the head is very large in proportion to the rest 
of the body ; the ears are pointed, and either of the same size 
as those of the domesticated animal, or long and pendulous like 
those of the ass; the eyes are fiery, the mane very short and 
curly, the tail in some instances thick, in others scanty, and 
always shorter than in the domestic animal ; the colour is in- 
variably that of the mouse, with an ashy shade underneath the 
belly, whilst the legs, from the knee downwards, are black ; the 
coat is long and thick, more like fur to the touch than horse- 
hair (‘Reise durch Russland in den Jahren 1768 und 1769,’ 
vol. 1. p. 44). 
According to Pallas, the following was the appearance of 
the tarpan :—‘‘ Plerique sunt colore griseo-fusco vel pallido, 
juba, loro dorsi, caudaque fuscis, rostro albido, circa os nigri- 
cante. Sed immiscentur variorum colorum eque a domesticis 
gregibus per feros admissarios abactee vel allicitee. Statura 
sunt minore domesticis, capite majore, pedibus procerioribus, 
auriculis paulo majoribus, apice summo falcatim subreflexis. 
frons iis supra oculos convexior, cum vortice inter oculos ; 
ungule contracte, subcylindracese. Juba ab intervallo ocu- 
lorum ad scapulas, minus prolixa, suberecta. Vellus hyeme 
hirtum, laxius in dorso subundulatum. Cauda parum pro- 
lixa.” (Zoographia R.-As. 1. p. 260.) 
From these descriptions of the tarpan or wild horse by 
Gmelin and Pallas, it is evident they were unacquainted with 
Equus Przewalskit ; and Rytchkof had perhaps only acciden- 
tally heard of it when he mentioned a horse of dun colour 
(lutescens). As to tarpans of blue (c@rulescens) and other 
colours mentioned by Rytchkof, they were such as had pro- 
bably resumed a feral state in the same way as those described 
by Gmelin and Pallas. If it could be proved that Equus 
Przewalskii had ever been indigenous further west, and if 
when crossed with the domestic breed, unlike all the asinine 
tribe, it produced a fruitful progeny, some secrets in the history 
of our domestic horse might be brought to light—a conjec- 
ture partly confirmed by Rytchkof himself when he refers to 
the dun-coloured tarpans in the neighbourhood of Yaik in 
company with blue and other coloured tarpans. 
It also gathers consistency from the testimony of Pallas as 
to the habit of tarpan stallions, although in this instance not 
