13 



WiiyD AND Domesticated Horses. 



As recently as 1882 it was believed that the horse itself had become en- 

 tirely extinct as a wild animal. There were reports of the Tarpan foimd in 

 eastern parts of North Asia by Marco Polo and other Asiatic travellers. But 

 in 1882 a Russian explorer, discovered a single specimen of a true wild horse. 

 The description was received with incredulity and for a long time it was believed 

 that the so-called equins prejvalskii was a cross between a Kiang and the Mon- 

 golian pony which ranges over this region of Northern Asia. Fig. 25-26. 



It proves that the so-called Prejvalsky horse is one of the most desired 

 missing links in the history of the horse. We owe it to the scientific spirit of the 

 Duke of Bedford that Carl Hagenback of Hamburg was especially commissioned 

 to capture a number of these wild horses. He started out with a large herd of 

 native Mongolian mares to act as brood mares, and with numerous horsemen, 

 and succeeded in making a great round up of about one hundred wild horses. 

 The adults were too wild to be captured. We owe to the Dutchess of Bedford 

 beautiful photographs of the Prejvalsky horses and colts as they are now 

 seen, the most beautiful captive herd in existence, in the park of Woburn Ab- 

 bey, These animals are really very interesting to look at and to watch as they 

 wander through the beautiful park of Woburn Abbey. This happens to be the 

 best type of Prejvalsky ; there are two other types not so well shaped. 



In the absence of hair on the upper part of the tail, which is therefore 

 mule like, in the absence of forelock, in the upright mane and in a number of other 

 characteristics we find points distinguishing these horses entirely from any of the 

 domesticated horses. Every domesticated horse has a forelock. 



I spoke of the Prejvalsky as giving us a much desired missing link. 

 The link comes in between the natural history of the horse as we have been 

 following it, and the horse as discovered and domesticated by man. A brief 

 outline of man in his relation to the horse falls in the latter part of the so-called 

 Quaternary period, the age in which we live. This is distinguished also as being 

 the period of the mammoth in the northern hemispheres, as the period in which 

 we find first the remains of man. In the older Paleolithic period, so-called from 

 the fact that the stone implements of that period are not smooth, but are left 

 rough on the edges, we find the first proof that man hunted the horse as an 

 article of food. Among the deposits of Solutre in France we find the remains 

 of no less than 80,000 bones of horses in one of the caves, incidentally furnishing 

 abundant proof that man was at that time a great horse hunter. In the next, 

 or Magdalenean period, man became an artist, and in caves of this age we find 

 the earliest drawings known to history. When you first look at these paintings 

 you are rather amused, because they look so crude, but when you try to do the 

 thing yourself, if you are not an artist, or if you ask one of your children to do 

 it, or if you compare them with any of the paintings of horses by Indians, 

 you will see that these paintings while mere outlines have considerable 

 artistic value. Here for example is an animal like a bison; here is a rein- 

 deer; here is a mammoth, and here are some horses. These drawings are 

 quite truthful. An upright mane characterizes this horse, a heavy beard 



