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Show CIIAP. ll. IIORSES. 50 1 ract~rise particular Of . dividual van.a b.o ns n?t ]."~ nown to cb .l at o be ca1 1 cd mon-m t reat or inJunous enoug Mr G. Brown, of breeds, and no g t coll ctcd many cases. h . articularly strosities, I have ~o· :cultural College, who .ns l; writes to the Cirence tor gn . domestic amma ' . . tt ded to the dentition of our . d ei(l'ht permanent mCisors a en h has " sovera1 t"l iD es notiCe . o lone proper· 1 y have me that e ' . l . " Male horses a . thou(l'h . d of six m t 10 Jaw. d in tho marc, b mst~a but they arc occasionally .fou~ roperly eighteen, but camnes, . rnh number of nbs IS p ineteen on f mall s1ze.4 .I. 0 tly there arc n . oy ous a tt o" asser· ts that not unfrbeeq iune n the po terior nb. 0' always each s1" d e, the addition.a l onfe van.a t~w ns m. tho bones of the lde g f; I have seen several notiCes o ditional bone in the hock, an o t h us Mr.. Price 6 speaks of an adb etween tl1 e tibia and astragalus, ::r rtain abnormal appearances d not clue to disease. horses ce "t ommon in Irish horses, a~ M Gauclry,7 to posRess as qm e c . cl ccorclmg to · h t have often been obser;e 'a , f a fifth metacarpal bone, sot a a trapezi·u rn and a rudbim ent nos tros1. ty, m. the foot of t.h e ho· rse", " one sees appearing y roo . in the foot of the Hlppano~, structures which normally. ex;st In various countries horn-hlm -an allied and extinct amm~ . cl on the frontal bones of the rojections have been ~?serv~ Mr. Percival they ar~se about Pho rse : m. one case clesbc ·n becl Y l ·e " very hke those 1 rocesses, anc wer two inches above the or. Ita ~ths old," being from half to three- m. a calf from £. ve to. SlXl ronot h A ·a has described two cases s zar th quarters of an inch m :nh the projections were between t-' ]. n South America m w JC th . instances have occurre m d four inches m. 1e n oo th.. o er aSnp ain. much inherited van.a tJ.O n m· the h.o rses rr hat there has been fl t the number of the bJeed ]lot be doubted, wh en'v e re ec on WI.thin the same coun t J·y ' can h -ld or even . b r existing thtoughout t e w~ ha ·e lar(l'ely increased Ill num e l hen we know that t oy v o an<.. w . l of the Enniskillon , & by J ohn Law- s Mr. Pcrc1vrt • . . . , 1. i. 4 ' Tho Horse, c., renee, 1829, P· 1~. ' London vol. v. " 'Tho Votcnnary, ' p. e5 4P3r.o c. Veterinary Assoc., · , 'rho Ill . • ol xiii p. 42. Veiennary, .v 1. 1 .Soc Gcolog.,' tom. 7 • Bullctm c c a · xxii.., 186G, p. 22. . ''rhe Vctcnmuy, vo Dragoons, m , D s Quadrupedos du p. 224: se~ Azar~'. ~ 13. 'rho French Paraguny, tom. 11. p. . c,I'S to other f Azara ICL~ . translator . o .• Huzarcl as occumng cases mmJtlonccl by in Spain. CIIAP. 11. THEIR VARIATION. 51 since the oarHest known records. 9 Even in so fleeting a character as colour, Hofacker 10 found that, out of two hundred and sixteen ca es in which horses of the same colour were paired, only eleven pairs procluced foals of a quite different colour. As Professor Low u has remarked, the English race-horse offers the best possible evidence. of inheritance. The pedigree of a race-horse is of more value in judging of its probable success than its appearance: "King Herod" gained in prizes 201,505/. sterling, and begot 497 winners ; " Eclipse " begot 334 winners. Whether the whole amount of difference between the various breeds be due to variation is doubtfnl. ],rom the fertility of the most distinct breeds 12 when crossed, naturalists have generally looked at all the breeds as having descended from a single species. Few will ~gree with Colonel H. Smith, who believes that they have descended from no less than. five primitive and differently coloured stocks. 13 But as several species and varieties of the horse existed 14 during the later tertiary periods, and as Rutimeyer found differences in. the size and form of the skull in the earliest known domesticated horses, 1:> we ought not to feel sure that all our breeds have descended from a single species. As we see that the savages of North and South America easily reclaim the feral horses, there is no improbability in savages in various quarters of the world having domesticated more than one native species or natural race. No aboriginal or truly wild horse is positively known now to exist; for it is thought by some authors that the wild horses of the East are escaped domestic animals. 16 If our domestic breeds have descended from several 9 Godron, 'De l'Espccc,' tom. i. p. 378. 10 'Ueber dio Eigenschaften,' • &c., 1828, s. 10. II ' Domesticated Animals of the British Islands,' pp. 527, 532. In all the veterinary treatises and papers which I hn.vo read, tho writors insist in tho strongest terms on the inhm·itanco by the horse of all good and bad tendencies and qualities. Perhaps tho principle of inbcritanco is not really stronger in tho horse than in any other animal; but, from its value, tho tendency has been more carefully observed. 12 Andrew Knight crossed breeds so different in size as a dray-horse and Norwegian pony: see .A. Walker on 'Intcrmaniage,' 1838, p. 205. 1 3 'Naturalist's Library,' Horses, vol. xii. p. 208. 14 Gervais, 'Hist. Nat. Mamm.,' tom. ii. p. 143. Owen, 'British Fossil Mammals,' p. 383. 1 5 'Kenntniss der fossilcn Pferde,' 18G3, s. 131. IG Mr. W. C. L. Martin (' TI10 Horso,' 1845, p. 34), in arguing against tho belief thnt the wild Eastern Jwrses are merely feral, bas remarked on the improbability of man in ancient times having extirpated a species in a region where it can now exist in numbers. E 2 |