has but one central, solid-nailed or hoofed toe, but it retains, hidden beneath the skin, traces of two side toes in the form of the “splint bones,” as they are called by the anatomist and the veterinary surgeon.
Thus we see that the primitive creature, which throve on the lowlands and in the damp forests, was succeeded by representatives which had lost the divided hoof. We infer that a change of habitat had occurred: the cloven, spreading foot was no longer necessary. Accompanying this modification, great structural changes were developed in the teeth, suggesting that the animal had begun to feed on harder, drier herbage. There are other “decadent remnants” visible in the modern horse, such as the callosities, or “chestnuts,” of the limbs, which are believed to have once been functional, possibly as scent-glands[1091]. Viewed as a whole, the developed genus Equus is larger, swifter, and stronger than its ancestors, and it is proportionately more supple and graceful.
The story just outlined is not a whispering vision vouchsafed to a few favoured palaeontologists. Behind the theory there is reality, as may easily be proved by a study of authoritative works[1092], or by an examination of the specimens in the Natural History Museum at South Kensington.
Our first intimation of human contact with the horse is furnished by the Solutrean and Magdalenian caves and rock-shelters of France. Representations of the animal, both on the flat and the round, are not uncommonly found associated with remains of the latter period. The cavern of Bruniquel, Tarn-et-Garonne (Magdalenian period), yielded sculptures of horses’ heads, representing carved objects which were probably portions of javelin-throwers. A fragment of a horse’s rib from the same site was engraved with three horses’ heads[1093]. From the cave-shelter of La Madelaine, Dordogne, there was obtained a bone incised with the figure of a naked man, on each side of which was a horse’s head[1094]. Other French examples might be given ([Fig. 81] A). Only one English specimen is on record—a polished fragment of a rib, engraved with the head of a horse, found at Robin Hood’s Cave, Cresswell Crags, Derbyshire[1095] ([Fig. 81] B).
Fig. 81.
A. Drawing of a horse, by a cave-man. Dordogne, France. (British Museum.) The large head and the upright mane are especially noticeable.
B. Horse’s head, incised on a piece of bone; Limestone cave, Cresswell Crags, Derbyshire. (British Museum.)