Abstract
FOR the Mammalia the family of horses has long been the standard example of an evolutionary series. There is no doubt that of all such series it is the most completely known and that it throws much light on the manner, if not on the method, of evolutionary change in mammals. Properly to understand this change, and the theoretical arguments which arise therefrom, it is necessary that the available data should be presented in considerable detail. The majority of textbooks fail in this respect from lack, no doubt, of sufficient space. A summary of what has happened in some millions of years (forty-five millions according to the present author)., illustrated by perhaps a dozen examples of horses chosen from successive strata to form a gradated series, cannot give a true impression of the facts. There is, moreover, a danger of such series becoming stereotyped, and for the student in consequence to come to think that it represents the whole picture and so to remain ignorant not only of the wealth of material that has been collected together but also of the fact that the horses, so far from being a straight line of evolution, and no more, had, on the contrary, many lines adapted in different ways, some successful, others the reverse.
The Evolution of the Horse.
By Prof. F. B. Loomis. (The Amherst Books: Second Series.) Pp. xvi + 233 + 26 plates. (Boston, Mass.: Marshall Jones Co., 1926.) 3 dollars.
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[Book Reviews]. Nature 118, 873 (1926). https://doi.org/10.1038/118873a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/118873a0