576 PROFESSOR J. C. EWART 



In 1902, as Salensky pointed out, it was impossible to say how Prejvalsky's horse 

 was related to the domestic horse, or even to say that (notwithstanding Noack's state- 

 ment) it profoundly differed from the vast majority of ponies. 



But now, thanks largely to the enquiries suggested by a study of the Newstead 

 skulls, it is possible to indicate to what extent the Steppe variety (to which Prejvalsky's 

 horse belongs) and also the Forest and Plateau varieties have contributed to the making 

 of at least some of the domestic breeds. 



It may now be asserted without fear of contradiction that all horses, whatever the 

 breed, in which the face is long and decidedly bent downwards on the cranium, have in 

 part sprung from ancestors allied to, if not identical with, the ancestors of Prejvalsky's 

 horse. Though admitting this, it might be said that it is impossible to estimate the 

 amount of the bending of the face on the cranium in living animals. This is doubtless 

 true, but a fairly accurate index of the relation of the face to the cranium is afforded 

 by its length and outline. If from well above the eyes down to near the muzzle the 

 profile is distinctly convex, it may be safely assumed that the face is strongly bent 

 on the cranium. When there is a marked prominence between and for some distance 

 above and below the eyes, the face is also certain to be bent downwards, even although 

 it tapers rapidly and is slightly concave about midway between the eyes and the 

 nostrils. 



Further, when the eyes appear to be near the ears, and the distance from the eyes 

 to the nostrils seems excessive, the face is certain to be more bent than in horses of the 

 Forest and Celtic type. 



I have found the face decidedly bent downwards on the cranium in skulls belonging 

 to the following breeds, viz. : — the Shire, Clydesdale, Hackney, Kattiawar, and Dongola, 

 and also in skulls of several Arabs, Barbs, and Irish hunters, and in the skull of a 

 Sulu pony. 



In Shire horses the skull is sometimes nearly as bent as in the Newstead skull (PI. II. 

 fig. 7) of the Steppe type, and it is frequently more prominent below the level of the 

 eyes. In the skull of a cart-horse represented in fig. 2, the frontal index is 52 - 60, the 

 cephalic index is 61*30, and the cranio-facial index is 75"02. # Judging by the frontal 

 index, the Steppe variety seems to have contributed three parts and the Forest variety 

 one part to the making of this skull. Evidence of the Forest influence we have in the 

 occipital crest being higher, the nasals more elevated, and the premaxillse less bent 

 downwards than in a typical skull of the Steppe variety. 



In Clydesdales with a nearly straight profile — a type more common a generation 

 ago than now — the face is wider and less bent, and the nasals are more prominent. In 

 such cases, ancestors of the Forest type have prevailed. 



It is rather remarkable that while in its skull a Shire horse usually very closely 

 approaches the Steppe type, in its limbs and hoofs it as often presents the characters of 



* In the skull of a Shire horse (Starlight) in the British Museum, the frontal index is 51*1, i.e. in its frontal index 

 Starlight is almost identical with Prejvalsky's horse and with the f>60 mm. Roman skull from Newstead. 



