460 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess. 
The Wild Horse (Equus jprjevalskii , Poliakoff). By J. C. 
Ewart, M.D., F.R.S., Professor of Natural History, University 
of Edinburgh. 
(Read June 15, 1903.) 
In the time of Pallas and Pennant, as in the days of Oppian 
and Pliny, it was commonly believed true wild horses were to be 
met with not only in Central Asia, but also in Europe and Africa. 
But ere the middle of the nineteenth century was reached, 
naturalists were beginning to question the existence of genuine 
wild horses; and somewhat later, the conclusion was arrived at 
that the horse had long “ceased to exist in a state of nature.” 1 
This view had barely been accepted by zoologists, when it 
was announced from St Petersburg that a true wild horse had at 
last been discovered in Central Asia by the celebrated Russian 
traveller, Prjevalsky. 
An account of this horse was communicated by Poliakoff, 
in 1881, to the Imperial Russian Geographical Society. 2 The 
material at Poliakoff’s disposal being limited, zoologists were 
not at once disposed to admit that Prjevalsky ’s horse, as it came 
to be called, deserved to rank as a distinct species. Some believed 
the new horse had no more claim for a place amongst wild forms 
than the mustangs of the Western prairies or the brumbies of the 
Australian bush ; while others asserted it was merely a hybrid 
between the Kiang ( Equus hemionus) and a Mongolian or other 
Eastern pony. 
Even after the brothers Grijimailo in 1890 3 added somewhat 
to Poliakoff’s original description from material (four skins and 
a skeleton) brought from the Dzungaria desert, naturalists were 
still sceptical. The greatest English authority on the structure 
and classification of the Equidse during the latter part of the 
nineteenth century was the late Sir William Flower. Writing in 
1 Bell’s British Quadrupeds. 
2 A translation of Poliakoff’s paper will be found in the Annals and 
Magazine of Natural History , 1881. See also Tegetmeier and Sutherland’s 
Horses, Asses, and Zebras. 
3 See Proceedings of the Roy. Geog. Soc., April 1891. 
