Sept. 8, 1916. 
NORTH SHORE BREEZE and Reminder 4] 
How the Horse Came to Be 
. Article Supplied by the 
Smithsonian Institution 
O king of the realm, no matter how purple be his royal 
raiment, nor in fact any other human being, can trace 
his ancestry as far back as that of the horse. This anima! 
so well known the world over, has the longest pedigree on 
record; one probably over 3,000,000 years old, dating 
back to what is known as the Eocene Age, thousands of 
years before the coming of man. His genealogical tree is 
shown in the National Museum at Washington, where a 
series of feet and skulls depict some of his more important 
ancestors. 
The horse of the Eocene, or his forebear rather, was 
known as Eohippus, or Dawn Horse. He-was about the 
size of a fox, standing a little more than one foot high. 
Eohippus lived in North America, where he ran light- 
footedly over the Tertiary rocks on his well developed 
four toed front feet, and three toed hind feet. His 
teeth were not like those of a modern horse either, but 
were short crowned. While scientists are unable to tell 
us just how long his mane was, if he had any, or the color 
of his hide, they do know the facts mentioned above, for 
his fossil remains have been found in the rock strata 
known as the Lower Eocene, which is supposed to date 
back about 3,0C0,000 years. 
It is a fortunate thing that little Eohippus experi- 
enced the development that he did, or became specialized, 
as the scientists say, for in his early form such an animal 
would have been of but little service to us domestically. 
But such was the case, he developed remarkably and it is 
claimed that, while he is not on the same plane with man 
mentally, of course, he is more highly specialized anato- 
mically. His physique developed as his needs required. 
He could not fight much, so had to run away; his speed 
developed until today he is seen to be fleet footed, strong, 
both for bearing packs and pulling loads, and to this end 
his size, feet, teeth and other parts developed with his 
advance down the ages. At his early age, when he was 
called Eohippus, the horse was a most insignificant crea- 
ture as compared to his contemporaries, the great hulking 
brutes called the Uintatheres and Coryphodonts. But 
strange as it may seem, his posterity has outlived them 
all—a fine example of the survival of the fittest. The 
horse is one of the best known examples of the survival 
of prehistoric animals. 
An exhibit illustrating the development of the horse 
is shown in the U. S. National Museum, at Washington, 
D. C., in the halls of the division of vertebrate paleonto- 
logy, which includes all the fossil animals having back- 
bones. Most of the specimens are complete bones, partly 
turned to stone and found imbedded in rock in severai 
localities in this country. The earliest known form, the 
Eohippus, comes first, showing his four toed front feet 
and his three toed hind feet, as well as his teeth and skull 
of that time. As the next advanced stage, we find the 
bones of a somewhat larger animal of the Oligocene 
period, known as Mesohippus, comparatively about the 
size of a sheep with three toes on all its feet, the one on 
the front feet having proved superfluous, nature saw to 
it that it disappeared; its teeth have also advanced a bit, 
to assist it in feeding, as may be seen in the exhibtion 
case. Next, in the Miocene, a little later period, there 
lived numerous large horses called Merychippus, Neohip- 
parion, Protohippus, etc. The foot bones of these animals 
show three toes on each foot, but with the middle toe 
much larger than its companions, while the teeth are 
seen to be longer and deeper crowned. In fact, this type 
begins to look more like a regular horse. In the next 
step, the Pliocene, are seen still more specialized forms, 
Protohippus and Pliohippus, the latter, and some other 
species, having but a single toe on each foot, which soon 
developed a single hoof, their adjacent or auxiliary toes 
having disappeared and only the splints or stumps remain 
to be seen on the fossil bones, vestiges of which may also 
be seen in modern horses. He seems to have grown a 
little larger also, and more to the shape of the horse we 
know. He was still able to feed, in spite of his longer 
legs, as his neck and jaws had grown in proportion, and 
he could travel at a high rate of speed on hard ground. 
True horses occurred in the Pleistocene period, some 
forms very closely resembling the horse of today, the 
average of them a little smaller in stature. Modern 
horses average 14 hands high, or about 4 feet 8 inches, 
showing a wonderful growth or development in height 
alone. 
Here we have, in the National Museum series, fol- 
lowed the pedigree of the horse, or at least the general 
steps thereof ; in a general way it is seen that this progress 
consisted of increase in size, gradual enlargement of the 
central toe, accompanied by the gradual withering or 
shrinking, and final loss of the side toes; the development 
of the single hoof on each foot, and the increase in length 
and complexity of the teeth, parttcularly the cheek-teeth. 
Sufficient finds of petrified skeletons or fossils have 
been made in this country and Alaska to prove that the 
early horse was here in great numbers in the Pleistocene 
time, just as he was in Europe, but soon thereafter he be- 
came extinct here, or nearly so, due to the great ice sheet 
of the glacial age which swept the northern part of the 
new world clean of nearly all animal life. Some scientists 
admit that the Pleistocene horse might have lingered in 
Texas or some southern part of North America until the 
coming of the white man, but there 1s no proof of it, and 
others hold that the early Spaniards brought the horse 
along and thus reestablished the horse on its native heath. 
That part is a puzzle, but we do know that from 
North America’ the eatly horses journed to northern 
Europe across the once existing land bridge of the far 
north, stocking that continent well, before his kind be- 
came extinct here—who knows that he, or his progeny, 
following the receding of the great ice sheet, may not 
have returned at an early date by the way he came, and 
thus have “beaten the white men to it,” so to speak. 
HE, CurysANTHEMUM Room in the greenhouse at “Old 
Tree House,” West Manchester, is one in which the 
rarest blossoms of these beautiful autumn flowers may be 
seen. Mrs. Lester’ Leland’s greenhouse is one of the 
rare beauty spots upon the North Shore during the entire 
season, when it shows its wealth of waxen begonias, gera- 
niums, ferns, orchids and other tropical and semi-tropica! 
productions. The chrysanthemums are always among the 
much admired flowers anywhere, and a visit to see them 
at Mrs. Leland’s will show the office of the greenhouse 
almost papered with certificates of merit and prizes taken 
by the productions of the place. 
“Miserly offered the man who saved his life half a 
dollar.’ 
“Did the man accept it?” 
“Ves, but he handed Miserly twenty cents change.” 
—Christian Register. 
