EVIDENCE OF THE WIND. It is not so very long since the last clumps of timber vanished from the steppes. Still on the North American range one finds the trunks and roots of forest trees, which silicate swamps have changed into masses of jaspar onyx and chalcedony; and these have not had time to sink as stones do into the soil. In a seven hundred mile ride across the Canadian plains, I found a living clump of three pines distant a hundred-and-fifty miles from the edge of the shrunken forest. Such shelters have indeed so lately disappeared that the horse has not yet learned the trick of {26} wind endurance. If his ears and nostrils were not so fearfully sensitive, he need only face up wind, and the hair of his body would be blown down flat to protect him. As it is, the extreme sensitiveness of his face compels him to stand or drift with buttocks turned to the gale, tail tucked, head down. It is only in that position that the hair is blown up from the skin and fails to give him protection. We may conclude then that he was inured to torrid summers and even to polar winters before he had to encounter strong gales away from shelter. Long after the three-toed ancestor had become a horse, the steppes had abundant tree clumps for wind breaks in heavy weather. [Sidenote: African bays] THE AFRICAN BAY. In every striped horse it seems a general rule that the body stripes are curved in such a way as to point to a spot on the ground midway between the four legs. The leg bands merely cut the upright lines of the limbs so that these disappear. Some natural process of colour photography has made the body stripes a bold copy of the upward and outward spread of the tussock grass. It was for concealment then among the rich forage of the tussocks that some of the parent species wore a gorgeous livery which passed on to the Zebra. {27} [Sidenote: The Saharan range] From all accounts the Sahara is the bed of a recent sea, but, possibly along its eastern side, a horse range extended from the Soudan to the shores of the Mediterranean. Such range had not less than ten inches a year of rainfall, carried by the sea breezes from surrounding waters. There was moisture enough for trees, and there are abundant traces of quite recent timber. The winds were drying, the clouds were burned out, the light was increasing to a terrific strength, and the tussocks began to fail. On the American range I have noticed that these tall grasses, abundant only thirty years ago, have become quite rare since the pasture was overstocked. As the tall grasses perished and streaks of naked desert crept into the dying pasture, all hope of concealment for horses was at an end, the brilliant striping ceased to have any value, and the need for speed outweighed the need for sleep. Three and a half hours for sleep, standing, suffices the modern horse.