IV] THE ORIGIN OF THE LIBYAN HORSE 457 



The result then of our examination of the occurrence of 

 stripes in horses has led us to the conclusion that such stripes 

 are very often to be traced to North African blood. But as we 

 have seen that it is in Africa the Equidae show a special 

 tendency to stripes, and that it is there alone they are found 

 with stripes all over, as was the case with Darwin's colt, whose 

 markings, as the reader will remember, resembled those of 

 certain zebras, we are justified in inferring that the tendency 

 to stripes which is so marked a feature of the North African 

 horses and their derivatives is due to the circumstance that 

 that strain is not a mere recent differentiation under domesti- 

 cation and artificial breeding of an Asiatic domestic breed, 

 but is rather to be considei*ed a species specialised during a 

 long lapse of time in Libya under conditions somewhat similar 

 to those which have produced the zebras. 



It has been supposed that certain experiments conducted 

 by Prof Cossar Ewart in order to test the truth or falsity of 

 the commonly received doctrine of Telegony, confirm Darwin's 

 hypothesis that the common ancestor of the Equidae was a 

 striped animal. The theory of Telegony gained much support 

 from the famous letter of Lord Morton to Dr Wollaston, of 

 Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, then President of the 

 Royal Society. In it Lord Morton stated that he had mated 

 his quagga stallion (Fig. 39) " with a young chestnut mare of 

 seven-eighths Arabian blood, and which had never been bred 

 from." The offspring was a filly, striped not only on the body 

 but also on the legs, which were not so marked in her quagga 

 sire. Lord Morton sold the chestnut mare to Sir Gore Ouseley, 

 who bred from her by a very fine black Arabian horse a filly 

 and a colt, which according to Lord Morton, in their colour and 

 the hair of their mane had " a striking resemblance to the 

 quagga." The filly and colt were in some respects more striped 

 than either the quagga or quagga hybrids 



From this it was inferred that the quagga had so infected 

 the mare that her union with him influenced the offspring of 

 her subsequent matings. In order to test this, Prof. Ewart 



^ Phil. Transactions, 1821, p. 21 ; Ewart, Penycuik Experiments, p. 59. 



