266 THE HORSES OF PREHISTORIC [CH. 



Andalusian horses to Mexico and Texas. But it would be just 

 as absurd to assume that because amongst the hills and 

 northern states of South America grey and rufous-grey of the 

 Asturiau breed are very common, we have here instances of 

 reversion. We have just seen that in addition to the fine 

 dark horses of Andalusia (which have shown no tendency to 

 revert to dun on the Pampas) Spain also possesses horses of all 

 sorts of colours — dun, white, dun with stripes, various shades 

 of grey, rufous-grey or roan, brown and black — and we were 

 enabled to conclude that all these colours except dun and 

 white and possibly striped dun were due to the intermix- 

 ture of the Libyan and European-Asiatic horses. We also 

 saw that when pied and grey horses were met on the 

 Pampas, they were not reversions or ' sports,' but were 

 invariably animals which had escaped from domestic conditions 

 and were almost certainly of the Asturiau and Murcian stocks. 

 Bearing therefore in mind that the horses introduced by the 

 Spaniards into the northern parts of South America were of 

 light and mixed colours, we must be prepared to find that 

 horses of a similar Asturian or Murcian origin as well as 

 Audalusians were brought by the first Spanish settlers to San 

 Domingo, and later to Cuba (settled in loll), by Cortes to 

 Mexico in 1519, and still later to Florida and to the western 

 bank of the Mississippi. We need not then be surprised, if the 

 descendants of these Spanish horses wear liveries of all colours — 

 black, grey, roan, and roan pied with dun (sorrel), dun, and 

 striped dun — just like the horses of the northern states of 

 South America descended from the breeds of northern Spain. 



We must not then hastily assume that the dun horses often 

 with stripes found in Mexico and the Western States are 

 instances of a reversion to a primal colour, when it is far more 

 probable that they have simply retained the livery which dun- 

 coloured striped ancestors brought with them from the sierras 

 of Spain. If it can be shown that the Spanish Conquistadores 

 carried into Mexico and Texas not only Andalusian horses, but 

 also those of inferior breeds, we shall have an easy explanation 

 of the many colours (including striped dun) found to-day in 

 their posterity. Fortunately we have the clearest evidence 



