26 AFRICAN BAYS 



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 dow^n. 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 en- 

 counter 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. 



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 up- 

 ward 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. 



