Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 35, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 September 1895 — NO ABORIGINAL WILD HORSES. [ARTICLE]

NO ABORIGINAL WILD HORSES.

Descended from Domesticated European Horses. Is there such a thing as the wild, horse, an aboriginal or truly wild horse, In the world now? The answer Is more than doubtful. The mustang of Mexico, the wild horse of the South American pampas, the brumbi of Australia, all are descendants of the domesticated animals introduced from Europe. The first horse was landed In America at Buenos Ayres in 1537. In 1580—that is, in less than fifty years —horses had spread in regions as remote as Patagonia. In Australia the diffusion of horses that have escaped from civilization has been quite as rapid, and in 1875 it was found necessary to shoot as many as 7,000 wild horses in the colony of New South Wales alone. In some parts of Australia the horse pest has received legislative notice. The wild horses tempt domestic horses to join them, and wild stallions also invade the Australian horse runs and vitiate choice herds in a most annoying manner. They recur to the ancestral manners in a way that Is always the same. Each stallion has his following of mares, ranging from a few up to forty and even fifty, and these parties may be separate or banded together in herds of considerable size, even, it is said, 400 strong. The young and the weak mares remain with a scanty or even no following. The stallion has to maintain his supremacy by frequent combats, which especially occur at certain seasons of the year. Ths animals are suspicious in the extreme, swift in flight, but bold in defense with tooth and heel in emergency. They range extensively in search of pasture and water, and when hard pressed by danger and famine the herds break up. It is said that each troop has a leader and implicitly obeys him. He is the first to face danger and give the hint to fly. When pressed the horses form a ring, with the mares and foals In the center, and defend themselves vigorously with their heels, or they close in on their opponent in dense masses and trample him to death. It is distinctly proven, then, that there can be no original or wild horse in either America or Australia, although there are tens of thousands of unknown horses., Tradition points to Central Asia as the original abode of the horse, and there, the original stock of wild horses may still possibly exist Darwin’s statement that no aboriginal or truly wild horse is known to exist must still be held as explaining the exs act position of this question. But we must supplement it by stating that it is not certain that truly wild horses do not exist; and, on the whole, conclude that the evidence is in favor of the existence of the wild horse in Central Asia, but that we have no evidence as to his pedigree In relation to domestication. The wild horse of the British Islands is now practically the Shetland pony, but he is not the powerful animal described by Caesar. The domesticated animal everywhere, however, reverts very easily to the savage state. The paces of a wild horse are a walk and a gallop. The double and the canter are artificial, and it is still a mooted question as to whether the wild horse ever trots.—From a paper read before the Bombay Historical Society. There are some people who give with the air of refusal.—Queen Christiana.