EVOLUTION OF THE HORSE 



35 



When you reach the place, hunt for the horse bones. 

 You will find them grouped together — skull bones here, 

 leg bones there, jaw bones in a row by themselves. Each 

 set is in its own glass case ; each is carefully mounted and 

 labeled ; each is protected from meddlesome hands and 

 from fire. Notice that all are arranged according to size, 

 and that they show progress from smaller to larger. 



Courtesy of the American Museum of Natural History 



Horse Skeletons compared 



The larger skeleton is of a horse of modem times. The smaller one (set in plaster) 

 is of a primitive horse that lived three million years or more ago. (After Osborn) 



Give special attention to the skeletons — one sixteen inches 

 high and about as large as a good-sized cat, another a giant 

 that towers as high as the largest dray horse in a modern city. 



If both these skeletons were wrapped in flesh again, if they 

 were alive and could move about and meet each other to-day, 

 neither creature would whinny to the other, for neither would 

 recognize the other as a flesh-and-blood relation. 



