1909.] Horses living under Domestication. 



395 



that even in small varieties the teeth were nearly as large as in a modern 

 cart horse. 



Having come to these conclusions, it is not surprising that when it fell to 

 his lot to describe small equine molars from the drift overlying the London 

 clay and from a cavernous fissure at Oreston, near Plymouth, he decided that 

 they could not belong to a true horse and (on the assumption that they 

 belonged to an extinct ass or zebra) formed for them the species Asinus 

 fossilis. 



In addition to the small second and third molars described and figured by 

 Owen, there is in the British Museum a small first molar from Oreston. The 

 anterior pillars of the second and third Oreston molars are more than half the 

 length of the crown, as in horses of the " forest " type, but the pillar of the 

 first molar, m. 1, from Oreston is only about one-third the length of the 

 crown as in Pliohippus and E. stenonis. 



Except in size, the small teeth from Oreston and other Pleistocene deposits 

 bear little resemblance to tbe molars of asses or zebras, but they are 

 practically identical in enamel foldings as well as in size with tbe molars of 

 a small (12 - 2 hands) slender-limbed horse in the possession of the Auxiliaries 

 who garrisoned the Eoman fort at Newstead in the south of Scotland about 

 the end of the first century. 



In addition to small equine teeth, the Devonshire Pleistocene deposits have 

 yielded a small slender metacarpal. This metacarpal (from Kent's Cave, 

 near Torquay), is 220 mm. long and 3025 mm. wide — the length is hence 

 7'27 times the width, as in fine-boned Arabs. 



As might have been anticipated from a study of the teeth, the Kent's 

 Cave metacarpal belongs to a very much finer-limbed race than the small 

 horse of the " elephant " bed at Brighton. On the other hand, the Kent's 

 Cave metacarpal very closely agrees with the metacarpals of the small 

 Newstead horse. 



This small first-century horse in teeth and limbs agrees with Exmoor, 

 Hebridean and other ponies of the Celtic type, i.e. with ponies characterised 

 by a small fine head, large eyes, slender limbs, five lumbar vertebrae, and by 

 the absence of the hind chestnuts and all four ergots. 



It hence follows that the small equine of the English Pleistocene (Owen's 

 Asinus fossilis), instead of being an ass or a zebra, is a true horse, which in 

 the metacarpals, as in the " pillars " of the premolars and first molar, differs 

 but little from Pliohippus of the late Miocene and early Pliocene American 

 deposits. 



Eemains of a small horse with teeth and limbs like Equus gracilis (Asinus 

 fossilis, Owen) have been found in the Pliocene deposits of Italy and France 



