204 BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY. 



fact and a most significant one, and, I may add, one on which zoolo- 

 gists have not hitherto laid sufficient sti-css. Darwin has taught 

 us how much may result from individual variety and specific varia- 

 tion, and he could nowhere have found it better marked than in the 

 spine of the horse. It will be sufficient if I here state that I have 

 proved it is not unfrequently seen that the seventh cervical vertebra 

 in the common English ass has on each side a well-developed rib 

 connecting it with the sternum; thus this animal is, in fact, the 

 extraordinary phenomenon of a mammal with but six cervical vertebras. 

 The bones of the back vary in different cases from 17 to 19 ; of the 

 loins the number of bones is extremely uncei'tain , ranging from 5 to 

 7; the sacrum consists of 5 or 6, and the number in the coccyx ia 

 quite uncertain;butit has been observed that the tail in well-bred horses 

 is becoming shorter — a fact which may comfort members of the Society 

 for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals with the knowledge that, 

 in the distant future, horses' tails will have become too short to require 

 iC docking.'" To those who view this subject from an artistic point, and 

 fear lest in the future the horse may lose altogether his beautiful 

 caudal appendage, I may give a word of comfort. Instantaneous 

 photography of horses in motion has proved that the tail has a 

 raison d'etre as a balancing organ ; Nature also will spare it for use 

 as a fly-flapper ! 



Time will not permit my passing in review the nearest allies 

 of the horse and the various races of equines in different parts of 

 the world. Our country-bred horses show some remarkable indica- 

 tions of relationship with the zebra, donkey, and quagga and 

 other equines who are not caballine. "We are constantly speaking 

 of the donkey- stripe of the Kattywar horses and of zebra marks on 

 the knees and hocks of country-breds. The frequency of mouse- 

 colour in country-breds and the constant occurrence of parti- 

 colouration in them are significant in this relation. Another study 

 of equines which would prove specially interesting and of scientific 

 value would be the phenomenon of hybridism as exemplified in 

 the mule, the hinny, and the crosses which have been made from 

 time to time between the horse and the zebra ; not to speak of the 

 extraordinary phenomenon which occasionally occurs of mules breed- 

 ing. These hybrids promise to show to the careful student the laws 

 of transmission of parental qualities ; they afford the most practicable 

 opening into this hitherto obscure field of enquiry. Comparative 

 anatomy gives us some information ; for example, we find that tho 



