Chat. II. THEIR COLOURS AND STRIPES. 67 



• 

 pony. I have seen three cases of the terminal portion 



abruptly and angularly bent ; and have seen and heard of 

 four cases of a distinct though slight forking of the stripe. 

 In Syria, Dr. Hooker and his party observed for me no less 

 than five similar instances of the shoulder-stripe plainly 

 bifurcating over the fore leg. In the common mule it like- 

 wise sometimes bifurcates. When I first noticed the forking 

 and angular bending of the shoulder-stripe, I had seen enough 

 of the stripes in the various equine species to feel convinced 

 that even a character so unimportant as this had a distinct 

 meaning, and was thus led to attend to the subject. I now 

 find that in the E. burchellii and quagga, the stripe which 

 corresponds with the shoulder-stripe of the ass, as well as 

 some of the stripes on the neck, bifurcate, and that some of 

 those near the shoulder have their extremities bent angularly 

 backwards. The bifurcation and angular bending of the 

 stripes on the shoulders apparently are connected with the 

 nearly upright stripes on the sides of the body and neck 

 changing their direction and becoming transverse on the legs. 

 Finally, we see that the presence of shoulder, leg, and spinal 

 stripes in the horse, — their occasional absence in the ass, — 

 the occurrence of double and triple shoulder-stripes in both 

 animals, and the similar manner in which these stripes ter- 

 minate downwards,— are all cases of analogous variation in 

 the horse and ass. These cases are probably not due to 

 similar conditions acting on similar constitutions, but to a 

 partial reversion in colour to the common progenitor of the 

 genus. We shall hereafter return to this subject, and discuss 

 it more fully. 



