F.voiATiDS or rill': iioh'si-: i.\ \.\ri la: \'.\ 



('hai'l(>st()ii. South ( 'nioliiKi ; ollici- s|)(M'ini(Mis Iimnc conic I'loiu cciiIimI 

 Florida, troni southciii 'I'cxas, Ai'i/oua, Kansas, Louisiana and c\-cn 

 from Alaska. 'I1u\v arc, in fact, so often found in dc})osits of livcis and 

 lakes of tlu^ latest <2;eolo^ical eixx'li (the Pknstocene) that the foiniation 

 in tlic wcstcMii rnit(Ml States has received tlie name of " 1m|UUs Px-ds." 



In Soutli AnuM'ica, in strata of the l^leistocene Tvpocli, there occurs, 

 besides several extinct sjXH'ies of the ^(mius Kquus, the Jlippidiuni, a 

 IKH'uliai' kind of hors(> cliaractcM'ized by very short legs and feet, and some 

 l)ecu]iarities about the muzzle and the gi'inding teeth. Th(^ leji;s \v(M-e 

 hai'dly as lonji; as those of a cow, while the lu^ad was as large as that of a 

 race horse or other small breed of the domestic horse. 



All these horses became extinct, both in North and South America. 

 Why, we do not know. It is very probable that man — the early tribes of 

 prehistoric hunters — played a considerable part in their disappearance, 

 not indeed ])y killing them all off directly, but by continual hunting and 

 chasing, driving them from the best feeding-grounds and interfering with 

 their habits and opportunities for grazing. This persecution would tend 

 to reduce their numbers and vigor, and be the prelude to their extinction. 

 The competition with the bison, which had recently migrated to America, 

 may also have made it more difficult than formerly for the American 

 horse to get a living. And finally, some epidemic chsease or prolonged 

 season of drought ma}' have exterminated the race. Whatever the cause, 

 the horse had disappeared from the New World when the white man in- 

 vaded it (unless a few individuals still lingered on the remote plains of 

 South America), and in his place the bison had come and spread over the 

 prairies of the North. 



Fossil horses are ecjually common in the Pleistocene formations of 

 the Old World. They have been found in all parts of Europe and Asia, in 

 North and South Africa, but not in Australasia, the East Indies or 

 Madagascar. In Central Asia, two wild races persist to the present day; 

 others were domesticated by man in the earhest times, and their use in 

 Chaldea and Egypt for draft and riding is depicted in the ancient mural 

 paintings. In Africa the larger species became extinct in prehistoric 

 times, as in America, but the smaller zebras still survive in the southern 

 part of the continent (one species, the quagga, abundant fifty years ago, 

 is now extinct), and the African wdld ass is found in the fauna of the 

 northern part. The wild horse of prehistoric Europe, a small race, short- 

 legged and shaggy-haired, was domesticated by man, a fact that is 

 known from the rude drawings scratched on bone or ivory by men of the 

 NeoUthic or Polished Stone Age. But the domesticated horses now in 

 use are derived chiefly from the Asiatic and African species^ although it 



iThey are probably derived from three different wild sources which Professor Cossar Ewart has 

 called the Forest Type of Northern Europe, the Steppe Type of Northern Asia, resembling the Prze- 

 walsky horse, and the Plateau or Desert Type of Northern Africa, resembling the Arabian — Henry 

 Fairfield Osborn. 



