In the dense forests some of the vegetarian tribes of animals had on the face two little bags or glands, to hold a strong-smelling liquid. This perfume dropped on the herbage helped the members of the herd to scent one another's trails, and so keep together for company or defence. On the skulls of some kinds of horses there may still be seen the hollow where the sac used to be. The bald skin of the pig is boldly painted in splashes of pink and brown to imitate the lights and shadows of forest undergrowth. The forest ancestors of the horse were bald, and painted just the same way; and their forest colouring may still be seen under the {5} hairy coat, especially at the muzzle, where the hair is thin. Of direct ancestors to the horse the earliest known was a little fellow called Hyracotherium, coloured no doubt like the pig or the hairless Mexican dog, and not bigger than a toy terrier. His range extended from England to New Mexico, across the old Atlantic continent. In him the original five toes had been reduced to four on the front foot, and three on the hind, as with the tapir, who is the very portrait of a horse-ancestor, although of larger growth. [Sidenote: The tapir] The tapir was ever a staunch conservative preferring death to reform. So he remains, one of the most ancient of all living animals, and relic of the long forgotten ages when the world was one big forest. Nowadays the tapir range which covered all the northern continents has shrunken to three districts widely sundered: Brazil, Mexico, and the Malay Peninsula. In all three he is dying out, and in a few more years will be extinct. From the tapir's habits we may reason that the horse ancestors were creatures not only of the deep glades of the forest, but also of closely wooded mountain ranges. They were shy and harmless, feeding at night on buds, leaves and the tender shoots of bushes, not on grass. {6} To this diet the horse reverts quite readily in times of famine, and in spring before the new grass sprouts, while the stable vice called cribbing develops when there is not enough bulk in his forage. The ancestors were fond of bathing, and when hunted would take refuge in the water. It will be noted that although wild horses do not bathe, the tame stock are excellent at swimming. The dappled skin of the tapir had grown a coat of hair, dark brown in the Americas, their original home. The long tail had shrunk, and in the tapir is reduced to a mere bud.