260 Next to the Ground 



recognition as one or the other passes the 

 fence, or goes along the highway. 



A foal's first coat is thick and roughish, and 

 never true in color. It begins to be shed at 

 two months old then the little bay beast 

 may turn out a chestnut, the ash-yellow one 

 black or bay, the black-coat very dark gray. 

 These false first coats sunburn readily to a 

 sort of muddy uniformity. Milk-white horses, 

 which are about the rarest of all, are white- 

 skinned from the first, though the hair is a sort 

 of dull foxy yellow. White hairs in the false 

 coat prophesy a roan nag. White, or rather 

 pink, nostrils augur a light coat hereafter. 

 White marks, as stars, snips, white stockings, 

 blazes, and skewbalds, exist from the first, and 

 persist, never varying from the shape they 

 showed at foaling. Dapples come out with 

 the true coat. Four sevenths of all foals de- 

 velop bay coats. The percentage would be 

 larger but for the increase of Norman and 

 Percheron stock, which is very largely gray 

 and chestnut. Among thoroughbreds, grays 

 are rarest especially among winning thor- 

 oughbreds, yet grays are many among Arabs, 

 and chestnuts rarest and most highly prized. 

 Roan is a coat the Arabs do not know. It is 

 held to be a sign of much mixed blood, yet is 

 plenty among English thoroughbreds, and not 

 unknown, though unfavored, among Ameri- 



