198 



The Living Animals of the World 



tail_a horse in fact, almost identical TV'ith the above-mentioned tarpan. But long before 

 historic records begm these horses must have been domesticated; man discovered that they 

 could be even more useful alive than dead, and from that time forth the horse became his 

 inseparable companion. '' Csesar found the Ancient Britons and Germans usmg ^var-charlots 



drawn by horses." 4. i r .1 



But the '^tock of domestic horses drawn from this tarpan breed appears to have died 

 out almost entirely, the majority of horses now existing being probably descendants of the 

 native wild horses of Asia, the product of a still earlier domestication. In Egypt the horse, 

 as a domestic animal, seems to have been preceded by the ass; but about 1900 B.C. it 

 begins to appear in the role of a war-horse, to draw chariots. Its use, indeed, until the 

 Middle Ao-es was almost universally as a war-horse. 



Froin the time of its domestication till to-day the history of the horse has been one 

 of proo-ress. The care and forethought of the breeder have produced many varieties, resulting 

 in such extremes as the London Dray-horse, the Kacer, and the Shetland Pony. 



The coloration of our various breeds of horses is generally without any definite marking, 

 piebald and dappled being the nearest approach to a pattern. Occasionally, however, horses are 



found with a dark 

 stripe along the back, 

 and sometimes with 

 dark stripes on the 

 shoulders and legs. 

 Darwin, discovering a 

 number of horses so 

 marked belonging to 

 different breeds, came 

 to the conclusion that 

 probably all existing 

 races of horses were 

 descended from a 

 " single dun-coloured, 

 more or less striped 

 primitive stock, to 

 which [stock] our 

 horses occasionally 

 revert." 



" If we were not 

 so habituated to the siglit of the horse," says the late vSir William Flower, " as hardly ever 

 to consider its structure, we should greatly marvel at being told of a mammal so strangely 

 constructed that it had but a single toe on each extremity, on the end of the nail of 

 which it walked or galloped. Such a conformation is without parallel in the vertebrate series." 

 By the aid of fossils we can trace out all the stages through which this wonderful foot has 

 passed in arriving at its present state of perfection : we can see how it has become more 

 and more beautifully adapted to fulfil the requirement demanded — a firm support to enable 

 its owner to cover hard ground at great speed. The study of the structure of this foot, and a 

 comparison with the intermediate forms, make it clear that this toe corresponds to the third 

 finger or toe of the human hand or foot — according as we compare the fore or hind limbs — 

 and that its development was at the expense of the remaining toes, wdiich gradually dwindled 

 and disapjieared, leaving in the living one-toed horse only traces of the second and fourth toes 

 in the shape of a pair of splint-bones, one on either side of the excessively developed third toe. 

 The horses, it must be remarked, may be distinguished from the asses by the fact that the 

 tail in the former is clothed with long hair throughout ; in the latter long hair springs only 

 from the sides and end, forming a tuft. Furthermore, the horses have a remarkable horny 



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li^<l.' r .Sliiil. 



\].A[ I 1N(. \KAB COLTS. 

 Kote the colts examining the pliotographet's hag, Thc-y are very imiuiaiti^x creatures, hut eai^ily frightened 



