396 Dr. J. C. Ewart. Possible Ancestors of the [May 15, 



and in the Pleistocene deposits of France and North Africa. The Italian 

 and Auvergne slender-limbed horse has generally been regarded as a small 

 variety of E. stenonis. By Pomel and other palaeontologists the French 

 variety was known as ,E. ligeris, while the North African variety, named 

 Equus asinus atlanticus by Thomas, was regarded by M. Boule as closely 

 allied to, if not the ancestor of, zebras of the Burchell type. 



The slender metacarpals from the valley of the Arno and Auvergne so 

 closely resemble the Kent's Cave metacarpal, and the teeth from Perrier and 

 Puy de Dome in France and Lake Karar in Algiers so closely resemble the 

 small teeth from Oreston, that E. ligeris and E. asinus atlanticus may be 

 regarded as varieties or races of E. gracilis. 



There are good reasons for believing that E. gracilis varied to form a 

 northern and a southern variety. Remains of a slender-limbed northern 

 race have been found in deposits belonging to the Neolithic, Bronze, and 

 still later ages in Britain and on the Continent. At the present day the 

 purest representative of this northern variety is the Celtic pony. Hence 

 this northern variety may be known as Equus gracilis celticus. 



Remains of a slender-limbed southern variety have not yet been found 

 in recent deposits in North Africa, but fine-limbed ponies without ergots and 

 hind chestnuts are sometimes met with in the south of France, and slender- 

 limbed horses without hind chestnuts — horses almost certainly of North 

 African descent — are occasionally met with in the West Indies and Mexico. 

 In the French, and still more in the wartless ponies of Mexico, the limbs 

 are longer than in the Celtic ponies, the coat is finer, the mane less full, 

 and the " taillock," so well developed in the northern variety, is very small. 

 As the southern variety in all essential points agrees with Prof. Ridgeway's 

 fine bay horse of North Africa (E. caballus libycus), it may be known as 

 E. gracilis libycus. 



Slender limbs and the absence of ergots and hind chestnuts are apparently 

 as distinctive of members of E. gracilis as an upright mane and the absence 

 of hind chestnuts are distinctive of asses and zebras. Hence, when, as a 

 result of crossing varieties possessing four ergots and four chestnuts, slender- 

 limbed individuals without ergots and hind chestnuts appear in any area, it 

 may be assumed that the horses of that area include E. gracilis amongst their 

 ancestors. 



From inquiries made and from crossing experiments it has been ascertained 

 that ponies of the Celtic type occur in the Faroe Islands and Iceland, in the 

 Western Islands and Highlands of Scotland, in the west of Ireland, in Wales, 

 Exmoor, and the New Forest, and in Norway and Finland. 



Further crossing experiments have made it evident that the yellow-dun 



