Such horses were undoubtedly hunted and killed as food by Paleolithic men; and when, many, many thousands of years ago, they had in some degree domesticated them, and began to migrate southward and westward, they took these horses with them. Those people that gradually occupied Persia, Mesopotamia, and the plains of Arabia and North Africa, developed them into riding animals that became perfected in what we know as the Arabian horse. Those tribes that migrated across Russia and along to the northern shore of the Mediterranean, found in Europe a similar, but more robust horse, now designated the "forest" horse, which the savages regarded as game. The two interbred in the course of time; but the southern breeds have remained smaller, lighter, and more agile, while the northern or forest stock has been the foundation of the heavy draft horses of northern Europe. After the Crusades Arab blood was introduced to effect a still further refinement of the horses of southern Europe, and it was from this Arab-improved stock, prevalent in Spain, that the horses sent to the Spanish colonies in the Americas were derived. Our plains, and the pampas of South America, soon became populated with these horses run wild—"mustangs," showing even yet traces of their aristocratic lineage.
BROAD-NOSED RHINOCEROS
Merck's Rhinoceros—prehistoric. Drawn by Christman. (American
Museum of Natural History)
So near to the horses that they belong to the same genus (Equus) are the zebras, which differ mainly in their brighter coloring, less bushy tail, "roached" manes, and lack of those callosities called "chestnuts" on the hind legs. The zebras are exclusively African, and include two types, a southern and a northern. The true zebra, now extinct, except where kept and bred in captivity, belonged to the mountains near the Cape of Good Hope, was only about twelve hands high, and had black stripes on a white ground.
