THE LIVING WORLD. 
557 
possible to find subsistence in a land where the deserts are more numerous than 
the oases; his covering is more suitable for protection in a region whose climate 
consists simply in violent, sudden and trying changes, while his appearance 
must be a protection against his easy discovery by the wolves, which prey upon 
FRONT VIEW. JURA. 
him and his. So likewise his flight across the steppes enlivens the prospect, 
while to the barbarians who inhabit the neighboring region, his pursuit as game, 
or his capture for the service of man, is highly exciting. The flesh of this, 
animal, like that of the horses 
which now supply the cheaper 
markets of France, may not be 
tempting to those who can have 
the equal of “the roast beef of 
old England,” but to pervert a 
proverb, tastes differ, and the 
Cossack would turn in disgust 
from the less palatable flesh of 
ox, or deer, or bird. 
The cowboy of the period 
and his Mexican rival are not 
the only experts in the use of 
the lasso, for the barbarians of 
the steppes have from time im ¬ 
memorial practised this art so 
celebrated since our travellers 
for pleasure have told and written 
of the ranches of the West. 
The tarpan is naturally docile tarpan, or wild horse. 
and speedily subjects himself 
to the service of his captors, whether this be to act as the military war- 
horse of this martial people, the less pampered animal that carries his. 
master in his nomadic life, or the patient beast which returns his fodder in the 
form of flesh upon which his master shall subsist. In any or all of these 
