102 WILD TRAITS IN TAME ANIMALS. 



primarily of value as a species of defensive 

 armour. In their savage combats for the pos- 

 session of the mares, stallions will invariably 

 endeavour to seize one another by the neck with 

 their powerful teeth, and I think there can be 

 little doubt that the "crest," which forms one of 

 the chief sexual differences in horses, was de- 

 veloped in the male to protect his cervical 

 vertebrae from attacks of this kind. Yet, since 

 fighting horses usually bite at the centre of the 

 nape of the neck in their opponents, and the 

 mane extends evenly from the forelock to the 

 wither, it seems somewhat doubtful if its pro- 

 tective value in battle would be sufficient to 

 account for its origin. Many very ancient sculp- 

 tures and drawings of horses found in the East 

 go to show that the early civilised races did 

 not consider a long mane desirable, and there- 

 fore it is pretty certain that breeders of those 

 days took no steps to cultivate it. Nearly all 

 these early representations of horses show the 

 mane to be " hogged," as if the horseman and 

 charioteer of ancient days found the free growth 

 of the hair to be a disadvantage when he was 

 fighting. Although we cannot satisfactorily ac- 

 count for the mane on evolutionary grounds, it 



