We have seen the close resemblance of warm winds and seas between the North Atlantic and the North Pacific; but it was only in the North Atlantic region that the great Ice Age, in long pulsations, widened and shrank its Icefields. Ten thousand years ago (Wright) in the Niagara District, and seven thousand years ago (de Geer) in Finland, the edges of the Icefield were withdrawn for the last time, and the climate began to get warm and comfortable.
In America and in Europe, as the ice retreated, a belt of tundra crept closely in its wake, and in the rear of that a belt of green turfed grasses.
In Eastern Canada, and North-western Europe these green turfed pastures are varied with woodlands of such trees as cast their leaves in winter. Amid these changes the horse had vanished from North America, but survived in Asia, and slowly extended his range as the ice retreated from Europe. In Europe as in America, man also widened his hunting grounds in the wake of the melting Icefield.
In the big region of the south-west wind the lands which surround the North Sea and the Baltic are different from all others, being under a low sun, cloudy, with only one day's sunshine out of seven. And Cloudland breeds a special type of man with blue eyes, a ruddy skin, and hair of chestnut, bay, brown, or dun, colours like those of horses.
Under the grey skies of Cloudland, man lacks the protective colour which in all other regions of the world defends the body from actinic light. I think we shall find this true of the horse also.
The original striped colouring of the Bays and Duns never developed in Western Europe with its climate of cloudy skies and verdant pastures.
The white horse
THE WHITE HORSE. Now let us study the conditions following the Ice Age in Southern Russia. Here the Dun horse has a white coat for sunny snowy winters. Rumour says that foals are not born white, and it must be remembered that snowy winters are recent even as grassy plains.
This whiteness is not, like the summer colouring, a paint issued by the body to tint the hair, but a mere absence of any colouring matter. It is as though the animal saved his stores to paint his inside to a warm red during the cold season instead of wasting it in mere vanity upon his outer clothing. At the same time nothing could be more reasonable than a white coat for concealment against a snowy background. Hares, Eskimo, and lots of other tribes are most particular in this matter, and among the best people of all snowy regions a white suit is the correct mode for winter. It may be that some tribes of ponies neglected to change in the spring, and so became conspicuous in summer, a fatal error where there are wolves about. These were not likely to prosper and raise children except under man's protection, so one suspects that white coats for summer wear date only from the human period. Men had a feeling, too, that the white horse was so beautiful that he must be sacred, a special gift of the gods. Without any special merit, being indeed of lower stamina and endurance than any other horses, the white stock were favoured by breeders. Left to themselves, they would die out rapidly in any sunny climate. One notes, however, that the Persian wild ass has a silvery white coat, the hue of his native desert. There are many animals whose dark hair is white at the tips, so that they are really brunettes who masquerade as blondes.
Bearded horses