Mat 6, 1904.] 



SCIENCE. 



737 



Heebert Osboen : ' Notes on a Macropterous 

 Phylloscelis atra.' 



Max Mokse : ' The Breeding Habits of the 

 Myriopod, Fontaria Indianw Boll.' 



Edward L. Rice : ' A Statistical Plea for Nature 

 Study.' 



Lewis G. Westgate : ' Shore Line Topography 

 between Toledo and Huron, Ohio ' (lantern slides) . 



J. H. Todd : ' Some Rare Forms of Aboriginal 

 Implements.' 



Edo. Claassen : ' List of the Mosses of Cuyahoga 

 County and of Several Other Counties of North- 

 ern Ohio.' 



J. H. ScHAFPNER: 'Extra-Floral Nectaries and 

 Other Glands.' 



John H. Sohaffnee : ' Notes on Nutating 

 Plants.' 



Otto E. Jennings : ' Notes on Some Rare and 

 Interesting Ohio Plants.' 



Wm. R. Lazenby : ' The Keeping Qualities of 

 Apples.' 



Wm. R. Lazenby: 'Seeds of Celastracese.' 



L. B. Walton: 'Variation and Environment.' 



W. A. Kellerman : ' Further Floristic Studies 

 in West Virginia.' 



W. A. Keixeeman: 'Additional Infection Ex- 

 periments with Species of Rusts.' 



W. A. Kellerman : ' Mycological Flora of Cedar 

 Point, Sandusky, Ohio ' ( abstract ) . 



W. A. Kellerman : ' Group Names in Natural 

 History.' 



W. A. Kellerman : ' Historical Account of 

 Uredineous Culture Experiments, with List of 

 Species ' ( abstract ) . 



W. A. Kellerman and O. E. Jennings : ' An- 

 nual Report on the State Herbarium.' 



E. L. MOSELEY, 



Secretary. 



rn^ 



'/ 



DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE. 



' HORSES ' NOT HORSES. 



The notice by E. 0. Case of 'The Tree 

 Dwellers ' exposes a truly remarkable view of 

 nature and the relations of ' horses ' of the 

 present epoch to animals of the past. That 

 picture of ' tiny little creatures ' with ' five 

 toes on each foot ' flying from dinosaurs and 

 escaping by climbing trees involves as 

 grotesque confusion of time, place and adapta- 

 tion of structure as could well be conceived. 

 But the critic has not shown up one of the 

 most misleading characteristics. The author, 

 after asserting that ' long before the tree- 



dwellers lived there were wild horses ' which 

 were ' tiny little creatures,' naively adds, 

 ' Perhaps you would not think that they were 

 horses at all ' ! If ' you ' did not think so 

 ' you ' would be perfectly right and any one 

 who thinks otherwise perfectly wrong. The 

 use of the word horse in such an enlarged 

 sense has been to some extent encouraged by 

 those who know better, but it is extremely de- 

 ceptive. I have asked a dozen persons of 

 more than average intelligence and culture 

 (school teachers and college graduates) what 

 idea they derived from the paragraphs in ques- 

 tion, and found that those who had no special 

 knowledge of zoology were entirely misled; 

 they imagined an animal like an ordinary 

 horse (more like a horse than a zebra or an 

 ass is like a horse), differing simply in hav- 

 ing five toes besides stripes like a zebra. 

 Now, every instructed zoologist would know 

 that such a characteristic as five (or four) 

 toes must necessarily be coordinate with in- 

 numerable modifications of other parts and 

 that, consequently, an animal so endowed must 

 differ vastly more from a horse than an ass 

 or a zebra does. In fact, every student of re- 

 cent mammals would place the extinct beast in 

 an entirely different family from the horse. 



But no ungulate in the line of the horses 

 with five toes has been discovered! The 

 nearest approach to it is the Hyracotherium 

 or Eohippus of the lower Eocene and that type 

 had only four front toes and three hind ones; 

 its jaws were relatively short, its teeth quite 

 different from a horse's, and, in fine, its asso- 

 ciated characters compel zoologists to differen- 

 tiate it as the representative of a peculiar 

 family — the Hsrracotheriids. In an article 

 (Horse) by a special student of the subject 

 (Dr. William D. Matthews), just published 

 in the Encyclopedia Americana, it is aptly 

 stated that the ' first ancestor of the horse line 

 is very difficult to distinguish from the con- 

 temporary ancestors of tapirs and rhinoc- 

 eroses.' 



Eurthermore, I object to the assumption 

 that the early representatives of the equine 

 phylum were striped like a zebra. The only 

 basis for such an assumption is that most of 



