278 BRITISH MAMMALS 



wolf, jackal, and cyon^ took to prowling about the vicinity of 

 human camps, and gradually attaching themselves to the society 

 and the service of this successful anthropoid ape. But certainly 

 the next beast to be brought under man's influence — perhaps the 

 first which he dehberately domesticated, in Europe at any rate — 

 was the horse. In the earliest Greek art of Cyprus, Greece, and 

 the Greek islands two types of horse are plainly depicted (as may 

 be seen, for instance, in the collections illustrating Greek art in the 

 British Museum). One — familiar to all of us from many a mag- 

 nificent bas-relief and statue — is the true Equus caballus type : the 

 sturdy, hog-maned, arch-nosed horse which has been the principal 

 breed of North Europe. The other (which is shown specially in 

 paintings on vases obtained in Cyprus) is the Arab horse, with 

 its fine head, smooth limbs, long mane, and well-furnished tail. 

 The various blendings or special developments of these two 

 varieties have given us all the breeds of domestic horse which 

 exist at the present day throughout the whole world, for it is 

 needless to remark that when the Caucasian entered America all 

 the indigenous American horses had completely died out, and 

 the wild horses of to-day in America are simply the descendants 

 of Equus caballus, introduced in a domestic form by the Spaniards, 

 Portuguese, French, and English. 



It is fairly certain that the Shetland pony is descended direct 

 from a dwarfed form of the wild Equus caballus, and that the 

 same may be said of many breeds of ponies in the west of 

 Ireland, and less certainly of the ponies of the New Forest. The 

 Romans, of course, introduced their domestic equine breeds into 

 Britain. These, too, were mainly derived from the Northern 

 stock. By various indirect means, however, from the time of 

 the Roman Conquest down to the seventeenth century, tinges 

 of the Oriental stock began to affect the domestic breeds of 

 the British horse, coming to England, no doubt, in the form 

 of barbs ^ ; and these mixed types sprang from the union in the 



^ See p. 128. 



^ Barb, of course, stands for Barbary. The Barbary horse of North 

 Africa is probably the result of an early cross between the Northern and 



