154 Captain T. Hutton on the 
studying the animal, upon whom indeed depends their honour and 
their life, is certainly entitled to be regarded with some respect. 
It is beyond all question that the Kouwmmite—red mingled with 
black, chestnut or bay—is preferred by the Arabs to all others. 
If I might be allowed to quote my own personal experience, I 
should have no hesitation in saying that, if there be any prejudice 
in the matter, I share it with them. Besides, must it necessarily 
be a prejudice because it may seem to be one? No one will deny 
that all the individuals of the same species are, in their wild state, 
identical in colour and endowed with common instinctive qualities in- 
herent in the race. ‘These colours and these qualities undergo no 
alteration or admixture except in a state of servitude and under its 
influences, so that if any of these individuals by a return to their 
natural condition, more easily proved than explained, happen to 
recover the colour of their first ancestors, they mill be equally distin- 
guished by more broadly defined natural qualities. ‘The canine race 
may be taken as an ilJustration. Whence it follows that a certain 
number of domesticated individuals being given, their coats alike 
and with dominant qualities, it may be fairly concluded that this 
coat and these qualities were those of the race in its wild state. 
In the case then of the Arab horse, if it be true that those whose 
coat is red shaded with black are endowed with superior speed, 
are we not justified in inferring that such was the uniform colour, 
such the natural qualities, of the sires of the race? 1 submit with 
all humility these observations to men of science. 
** Abd-el-Kader assures us, moreover, that it is ascertained by 
the Arabs that horses change colour according to the soil on which 
they are bred. Is it not possible, in fact, that wader an atmosphere 
more or less light, of water more or less fresh, of a nurture more or 
less rich according as the soil on which it is raised is more or less 
wmpregnated with certain elements, the skin of the horse may be 
sensibly affected? Every one knows that with any coat the 
colour changes in tone and shade according to the locality where the 
animal lives, the state of its health, the quality of the water it drinks, 
and of the food it eats, and the care that is bestowed upon it. ‘There 
is, perhaps, in all this a lesson in natural history not to be de- 
spised, for if the circumstances in which a horse lives act upon his 
skin, they must inevitably act also in the long run upon his form and 
qualities.” * 
Truly does the author here remark, that there is “in all this a 
Jesson in natural history not to be despised,” though, doubtless, he 
* «The Horses of the Sahara,” by Gen. Daumas, p. 20. English Trans- 
lation. 
