1909-10.] Restoration of an Ancient British Race of Horses. 309 
this indicates that the front chestnut in the Equidse has been derived from 
two callosities or pads it is impossible to say. 
Though in the head, teeth, callosities, hoofs, tail, and temperament this 
mixture of seven breeds decidedly differs from a Prjevalsky colt of the 
same age, it very closely agrees in colour with some of the Prjevalsky colts 
bred at Woburn. The Prjevalsky horse has been specialised for a steppe 
Fig. 26 .— A six-months-old colt obtained by crossing Connemara, Welsh, hackney, Iceland, 
Barra, Shetland, and Arab ponies. In colour this colt resembles the wild horse of Mongolia. 
The mane is still upright, the tail is well set on, the hind chestnuts are absent, and there are 
only minute vestiges of ergots. When mature this mixture of seven breeds may fairly 
accurately represent the small horse of Oreston, to which Owen gave the name Asinus fossilis. 
life, and in the process such stripes as may have existed in the more remote 
ancestors all but disappeared, presumably by an extension of the light 
and the gradual reduction of the dark areas. If the small horse which 
inhabited Western Europe along with the mammoth, as the limbs and hoofs 
suggest, was specialised for a plateau or desert life, it would, like the steppe 
horse, gradually get rid of its stripes, and each race as it was formed would 
acquire the colour best adapted for its special environment. 
