THE PKJEVALSKY H()R8E. 15 



ooat. In young animals with a winter coat, it can be distin- 

 guished only on the hind quarters close to the root of the tail ; 

 on which account it escaped Poliakofs notice. No dorsal stripe 

 is mentioned in those later accounts of E. prjevaJskii, which were 

 founded upon Poliakofs description. Poliakof, however, saw the 

 trace of the stripe on the tail, and described it correctly. Tichonov,* 

 whose descrij^tion was based upon an examination of the speci- 

 men in the University of Moscow (obtained by the Roborovsky- 

 Kozlov Expedition), and on the specimen in the Zoological Museum 

 of the Academy of Science, was the first to give a full and correct 

 account of the dorsal stripe, because he was dealing with examples 

 with a summer coat. Although attaching great importance to 

 this feature, he held that it played no part in the solution of the 

 question as to whether Prjevalsky's horse is a true wild horse 

 or an animal more closely related to the Asiatic wild ass, since 

 the dorsal stripe is met with in both horses and asses, and may be 

 absent in either. The stripe, though darker than the rest of the 

 coat, has the same- reddish-brown tinge. 



Another interesting feature in the Prjevalsky horse is the trans- 

 verse shoulder stripe, which is in exactly the same position 

 as that of the domestic ass and its ancestor, the African wild ass. 

 It is not nearly so well marked as it is in the ass, but neverthe- 

 less it can be clearly distinguished in the living specimens at 

 Tsarskoe-Selo. Broader and lighter than in the ass, it is of a 

 brown colour ; without sharply defined margins ; and much more 

 plainly marked in the summer than in the winter coat ; although 

 even in the latter it can be recognised. In the accompanying 

 photograph (Fig. 5) the shoulder stripe appears fainter than it was 

 in the actual specimen. Of the two horses at Tsarskoe-Selo, the 

 stallion has a broad brown stripe with distinct margins ; but in 

 the young mare, m wliich the hair of the body is much darker and, 

 consequently, of a greyish tinge in some regions, the stripe is 

 black in colour, much narrower than in the stallion and more 

 sharply defined. 



The legs of E. i^rjeral-^ldi are entirely different in colour from 

 those of the Asiatic ass ; inasmuch as, in the latter animal, the 

 lower part of the limbs down to the hoofs is always of a light 

 colour, whereas in the Prjevalsky horse the colour is more or 

 less black, according to the age and individual peculiarities of the 

 animal. In young animals, however, the black is occasionally 

 replaced by grey, and, in very rare instances, by white (as was 

 the case in a new-born foal I saw). In adult animals a black ring 

 extends some 80 mm. (3^ inches) above the hoof. From this to 



* Op. cit. 



