264 BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY. 



rians as even by our travellers of to-day, and it is probable that the 

 names of the colours of their so called wild horses were first con- 

 fused by the language of the nati\es of the country in which such 

 animals were found; secondly, rather mixed up in the Greek; thirdly 

 again confused in translation into English, either directly or through 

 the Latin. It is certain, that mere descriptions of colour are rather 

 limited in value even when there are no obscurities of language. 

 Darwin noticed that roan and iron-grey predominated among the 

 wild horses of the Falkland Islands as descended from horses left by 

 the French in 1764. Youatt says of the Tartary horse that he is 

 " generally of a red colour with a black stripe along the back." 

 Martin Duncan considers him mouse-coloured, and agrees as to the 

 dorsal stripe, and he speaks of these horses as the " nearest example 

 of the stock from which the domesticated horse was derived." 

 Prejevalsky mentions the wild horse of Central Asia as bay, and 

 elsewhere we hear him described as of a " rufous tinge. '' Any one 

 who has had to describe properly a number of battery or transport 

 mules, or even of country-bred horses, will clearly enter into the 

 colour difficulty, and understand how naturalists for scientific exact- 

 ness would need some such standard colour scalesas those introduced 

 by Broca for anthropological observers. He will also have observed 

 how wide embracing and indefinite are the vernacular colours kumait 

 and lot ! In India we have in the Kattywar horse, which comes 

 from a locality, the geographical position of which secures to an 

 extent purity of race, an example in favour of dun being the origina 1 

 colour, and among country-bred stock we find many duns and 

 mouse-coloured horses. We observe a great tendency of prevalence 

 of the donkey mark along the back, and even slightly a cross mark 

 on the shoulders, also pale colour of limbs and markings on the 

 knees and hocks, zebra-marks. The frequency of parti-colouration 

 is simply the effect of natural crossing ; it is seen among all semi- 

 wild stock and low-caste varieties of the horse. As regards colour 

 of original horses, I think we can come no nearer a conclusion than 

 that the groundwork varied somewhat in the different localities 

 according to prevalent colour of soil, probably from very light dun 

 through mouse-colour and chestnut to bay-brown, there being a 

 well-marked donkey stripe and small cross bands, occasionally also 

 faint stripes about the knees and hocks of a darker colour ; the 

 limbs, lower part of the belly and muzzle gonerally somewhat lighter 

 than the rest of the body. All the darker colours, all parti-coloura- 



