110 
The Evolution of the Horse. 
been laid down during the past ten or twelve years by Members 
of the Society in different parts of England and Scotland. 
These pastures have each year gone on improving ; they have 
everywhere carried more stock than the old pastures on similar 
neighbouring lands ; and their success has been, I believe, mainly 
due to the exclusion of rye-grass from the mixture of seeds 
employed in laying them down, and by the selection of what 
have been proved by experience to be the best permanent 
grasses and clovers. Wm. Carruthers. 
THE EVOLUTION OF THE HORSE. 
From many points of view the Horse is one of the most 
interesting of animals. In utility to man it yields to no other. 
It was his domestic companion, friend, and servant before the 
dawn of history. It has accompanied him in his wanderings 
over almost every part of the surface of the earth, performing 
duties, both in peace and war, which no other animal could have 
done, and giving man facilities for the exercise of dominion 
over Nature which otherwise would have been impossible to 
him. The role of the ass, the ox, the camel, and the llama, 
in performing similar duties, has been of a limited and sub- 
sidiary nature compared to that of the horse. It is only in 
very recent times that the progi'ess of mechanical invention has 
begun to supersede some of the uses for which the strength and 
the speed of the horse for many thousands of years have alone 
been available. How far this commencing disestablishment of 
the horse from its unique position, as the main agent by which 
man and his possessions have been carried and drawn all over 
the face of the earth, will go, it is difficult to say at pi-esent. 
To the eye of the naturalist the horse presents other, and still 
higher, sources of interest. No better example can be found in the 
whole Animal Kingdom to illustrate certain great principles found 
acting universally in the construction of the bodies of all living 
beings, whether animals or plants. The structure of the horse 
in relation to that of allied animals, and to the actions it has to 
perform in the economy of Nature, may be most advantageously 
studied by every one who wishes to gain an insight into some of 
the fundamental principles of biology. In scarcely any other 
animal has specialisation of various parts — that is, modification 
from the general or average type to conform with the require- 
ments of some special mode of existence — been carried to such an 
