[Sidenote: Cloudland]
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the edges of the Icefield were withdrawn for the last time, and the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 {34} 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.
[Sidenote: 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 {35} 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 {36} dark hair is white at the tips, so that they
are really brunettes who masquerade as blondes.
[Sidenote: Bearded horses]
BEARDED HORSES. The ancient horse-eating artist-savages of France
have left us portraits of ponies strongly bearded under the lower
jaw. In the earliest portrait we have of the Celtic pony (Ewart),
Odin's eight-legged Sleipnir shows the coarse bearded cut of jaw.
The Celtic pony types are bearded to the northward, clean-shaven
towards the southward parts of their wide range. The Prejevalski,
who is the Tarpan of Asia, is slightly bearded. So is the Kiang or
wild ass of Asia. One finds the beard bristles in all the northern
breeds of horses, not in the desert stocks to the south. Why then
should northern horses want to grow a beard?
A horse has so small a stomach that his day's work to get sufficient
grass is seven hours. Up to about fifty degrees of north latitude,
he gets seven hours of daylight even in mid-winter. Northward of
that he needs beard bristles to aid him in feeling and selecting
grass in the darkness. Southward of that, if he is hunted by wolves
or tigers, he needs a few beard bristles for night grazing except in
cloudless regions where there is always starlight. So, {37} roughly,
the range of bearded horses is that of long dark nights.
[Sidenote: Size]
THE REGISTER OF SIZE. The size of horses varies with their
nourishment.
On the scattered but rich bunch grasses of the desert, where there is
much travel for a little food, the pasture registers the stature of
the Bay as about fourteen hands two inches.
The scattered but rich bunch grass of the American steppe makes
horses prosperous in summer but famished in the winter, so that the
pasture registers a smaller horse than that of the desert--up to
thirteen hands. Under the same conditions we may take the register
of the Dun in Asia as up to thirteen hands.
The poor grass of the British moors registers a pony of ten to eleven
hands.
Strong feeding of grain and hay registers stabled horses up to
nineteen hands.
The great abundance of green turfed grass the year round in
North-western Europe should, under its best conditions, register as
large a horse as either steppe or desert.
[Sidenote: The three pastures]
THE THREE PASTURES. The Bay pasture and the Dun pasture are each of
continental size, whereas the green pasture is only a small province.
In the same way, the rock formations of the Bay and the Dun pastures
are each {38} continuous for several thousands of miles. In sharp
contrast is that little ragged edge of a great continent known as
North-western Europe, a district which has many times been flooded by
the sea, each bath making new beds of rock.
The lowlands of Great Britain, for example, have been frequently
submerged, and the island shows samples of almost every rock
formation known upon the earth. This European pasture then is not
only small, but also varied in its rock formations, its soils, and
its landscape. One may get a standard horse of registered size in
the Bay range or the Dun range, but would expect to find on the green
range of Europe not only many colours, but also many types derived
from the primitive stock, strains of all sorts and sizes. A glance
at three formations will show how much the build and size of a horse
is varied by the rocks.
GRANITE. In North-western Europe the granitic or speckled formations
form upstanding moorlands. The poor but abundant grass maintains
ponies both light and heavy of build, derived from several kinds of
ancestors. They are so secured from attack by beasts of prey that
they do not need to run far and fast on ground where running would be
dangerous. {39} These are grouped under the general name of Celtic
pony.
[Sidenote: Limestone and clay]
LIMESTONE. Allowing for some districts, like the central plain of
Ireland, where the Ice-sheet has left the country very badly drained,
a limestone formation usually makes dry soil. The vegetable mould
may hold a little water and make mud, as on the chalk downs, but the
rock is so porous that most of the rain soaks down, and the waters
run mainly underground. Moreover, the vegetable mould gives chemical
qualities to this water, which is enabled to dissolve the rocks and
form caverns on the underground water courses. At the same time the
water becomes 'hard' with lime in solution, so that the springs will
petrify moss and twigs.
The dryness of the ground tends to make horses sound of bone. The
carbonate of lime in the water supplies them with the material for
bone. As the result the bones are very light in proportion to their
strength. So this pasture registers a well-built and very light
horse. If such an animal is of Bay blood, he is larger and swifter
than the Arab, lacking only in soundness and in travel endurance.
CLAY. As clay holds water, its soils provide abundance to the grass
roots, and so produce {40} thick turf with a great weight of green
forage to the acre. Such heavy feeding without any exercise in
search of water, would, after the killing out of the wolves, tend to
produce a large, heavy, slow-going gentle horse with steady nerves
such as our draught stock, lacking in that soundness of feet and legs
which is limited to the breeds of arid regions.
[Sidenote: Horses of Cloudland]
So far, the argument presents for the green pastures of cloudland
horses of several colours; and, for the varied rock formations in the
North Sea and Baltic basins, horses of many types.
[Sidenote: Forest varieties]
Professor Ewart traces among the ancient wild horses of the forest
species three very distinct types:
1. At the time when the glacial drift of the Rhine and Weser valleys
had a climate like that of the Outer Hebrides of to-day, the
conditions of cold and damp matured the Diluvial horse (Equus
Caballus occidentalis). This animal stood fifteen hands, had a
longer face than the general forest type, was coarsely built, had
heavy fetlocks, a short upright pastern, a broad round foot. This is
the cart horse breed.
2. The Grimaldi Grottoes in the Riviera preserve remains of a
forest-upland horse, {41} large, coarse, heavy in build, with a
short, broad face, and a flat profile.
3. The Solutré Caverns of France preserve paintings made by ancient
savages of a small stout, chunky, bearded horse, rather like a long,
low Iceland pony, with a short broad face, elk-like nose, and low-set
tail, rough-haired towards the root. He stood from twelve to
thirteen hands in height.
From these three forest varieties our draught horses are mainly
descended; but there were also in Ancient Europe two other species
besides that of the woodlands.
_A_. Siwalik type. A fifteen-hand horse, lightly built like the
modern thoroughbred. The forehead recedes at an angle from the line
of the face, and there is a prominence between the eyes. The limbs
are long, withers high, and tail set on high.
_B_. Prejevalski Tarpan steppe type, the Dun of Northern Asia. The
face is long, narrow and straight. The nasal chambers are large,
causing a Roman nose. The limbs are clean, with close hocks and
narrow feet. Height twelve to thirteen hands.
We must think then of such types as the Forest and Siwalik adapting
themselves to the soils of North-western Europe.
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