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Some Early Mammals and the Story of the Horse: Osborn

A great deal of fresh material has been collected since the present writer, in the year 1894, published, in his Creatures of Other Days, some account of the evolution of the horse as told by the late Professors Marsh and Cope, and others; and some of the old conclusions have to be abandoned. Professor H. F. Osborn,¹ of the American Museum of Natural History, has taken up this line of research, and obtained important results. One of the trustees of the above museum, the late Mr. W. C. Whitney, generously provided funds for explorations. These expeditions began in the year 1890, and up to the year 1904, the American Museum Collection has been enriched by the more or less complete remains of 771 fossil horses, of which 146 were secured by Mr. J. W. Gidley, who took up this work under Professor Osborn. Five complete skeletons are now to be seen mounted in the above museum. All the other museums of the world together have only three complete mounted skeletons, and from all this wealth of material Professor Osborn has been able to find out three or four collateral lines of descent, some of which are mixed up with the pedigree published years ago by the late Professor Marsh.

According to Professor Osborn the line of evolution of the horse is, very briefly, as follows: - First we have the little Eohippus (or "dawn horse") only eleven inches (or two and three-tenths hands) at the withers, with its wrist or knee near the ground. The hand was still short, with four little hoofs, 1 See his article in the Century Magazine for November, 1904, on the evolution of the horse in America (illustrated).