280 
The Pre-historical Existence of the 
[May, 
which have been everywhere found in the corresponding 
deposits of Central Europe. This diluvial wild horse was a 
strong-boned, thick-headed, middle-sized animal, of about 
ii metres in height. It served the then inhabitants of our 
regions purely as an objeCt of the chase. 
Subsequently, as the diluvial steppe-regions of Central 
Europe were more and more restricted by the advance of 
the forest and their peculiar fauna was driven eastwards, the 
majority of these wild horses also withdrew towards the 
steppes of the East. Only in the open spaces, which 
even during the greatest extension of the forests remained 
in the shape of meadows, heaths, and swampy hollows, 
there remained wild-horses during the pre-historical Forest 
Age. But their number was far smaller than it had been 
previously, and their fossil bones show that the climate and 
the other conditions of existence were unfavourable. Most 
of the horses of the Forest Age, whose remains we find in 
the North German moors, in certain “pile-villages,” in the 
circular pits of Oldenburg, &c., were small, thin-boned ani- 
mals, from i'25to i'35 metres in height, and, in comparison 
with the steppe horses of the Diluvial Age, they may be 
considered as weak and degenerate. 
It might, indeed, be asserted that this small, thin-honed 
horse is the representative of another race of subsequent 
introduction, having nothing to do with the steppe horse. I 
am not of this opinion. From the materials before me I 
am in a position to prove that the horses in our regions 
underwent a progressive degeneration in size and strength 
from the Diluvial period down to the age of the Germanic 
forests. 
The causes of such degeneration may be seen, on the one 
hand, and principally in the damp forest climate, unfavour- 
able to the health of horses, and in the decrease of the 
pasture lands necessary for their existence ; and, on the 
other hand, in the aCtion of the gradually increasing domes- 
tication of the horse by man. 
The beginnings of domestication in most animals are 
accompanied by a certain degradation. So long as man 
stands at a low stage of culture he uses up (to borrow a 
French expression, it exploits ) the animals which he brings 
under his yoke, and deteriorates their conditions of exist- 
ence. He restricts their liberty ; he uses their strength 
often beyond a permissible degree ; he deprives the young 
of a portion of their mother’s milk ; he weans them too 
early, and in propagation he compels them to prolonged 
