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JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY 
NOTES ON EUROPEAN FOSSIL HORSES 
By Ernst Schwarz 
The problem of European fossil horses has always attracted the 
attention of zoologists. Since the times of Cuvier, the subject has 
been treated by H. v. Meyer, Pomel, Riitimeyer, Owen, Major, Neh- 
ring, Woldrich, and many others and a great number of forms have 
been described, until, in 1886, LydekkeU provisionally grouped them 
under two headings: Equus caballus Linnaeus, and Equus stenonis 
Cocchi. Thus matters stood when, in 1899, Boule,^ in a most suggestive 
paper, pointed out that, in addition to these, a third species, Equus 
robustus Pomel, could be distinguished, which although approaching 
the caballus type, was, he thought, more nearly related to stenonis. 
Since 1904 Professor Ewart^ of Edinburgh has taken up the subject 
with a view to elucidating the origin of domestic horses. According 
to his theory^ three types of domestic (and ancestral wild) horses can 
be distinguished; a “Plateau’’ variety including the Celtic pony and 
the Arab, which can be traced back to the Pliocene Equus sivalensis,^ 
a “Forest” variety typified by the heavy draught horses of continental 
Europe and descended from Pomel’s Equus robustus, and a “Steppe” 
variety still found in a wild state in Mongolia, Equus przewalskii, 
which has influenced some of the races of European cart-horses. Some 
more recent papers by Soergel,® Antonius,^ and Boule^ may be mentioned 
here; and finally an elaborate paper by v. Reichenau,^ in which a num- 
ber of new species and two new genera are described, which however 
has more confused than cleared the subject. 
1 Cat. Fossi Mamm. B. M., Ill, pp. 69-71, 73-88, (1886). 
2 Bull. Soc. G4ol. France, (3) XXVII, pp. 531^2, text fig. 1-22, [1899] (March 
1900). 
3 The most important of these papers are the following: Trans. Highl. Agric. 
Soc, Scotland, (5) XVI, pp. 230-268 (1904); Trans. Roy. Soc. Edinburgh, XLV, 
pp. 555-587 (1907); Science, (N.S.) XXX, pp. 219-223 (1909). Although I am 
compelled to state that his results are entirely wrong, yet I gladly admit that I 
owe many valuable suggestions to his papers. 
^ Similar views are held by Doctor Duerst (Carnegie Inst. Publ., no. 73, vol. 2, 
pp. 339-446; 1908). 
® Or a nearly allied type which is called Equus agilis Ewart. 
6 Neues Jahrb. Min., Beilagebd. XXXII, pp. 740-761 (1911). 
7 Verb. k. k. zool. bot. Ges., LXII, pp. (64)-(78) (1912). 
8 Ann. Pal6ontol., V, pp. 113-135 (1910). 
® Abh. Geol. Landesanst. Darmstadt, VII, pp. 1-155 (1915). 
