172 ORIGIN OF SPECIES 



with a double stripe on each shoulder and with leg-stripes; 

 I have myself seen a dun Devonshire pony, and a small dun 

 Welsh pony has been carefully described to me, both with 

 three parallel stripes on each shoulder. 



In the north-west part of India the Kattywar breed of 

 horses is so generally striped, that, as I hear from Colonel 

 Poole, who examined this breed for the Indian Government, 

 a horse without stripes is not considered as purely-bred. 

 The spine is always striped; the legs are generally barred; 

 and the shoulder-stripe, which is sometimes double and some- 

 times treble, is common; the side of the face, moreover, is 

 sometimes striped. The stripes are often plainest in the foal ; 

 and sometimes quite disappear in old horses. Colonel Poole 

 has seen both gray and bay Kattywar horses striped when 

 first foaled. I have also reason to suspect, from information 

 given me by Mr. W. W. Edwards, that with the English 

 race-horse the spinal stripe is much commoner in the foal 

 than in the full-grown animal. I have myself recently bred 

 a foal from a bay mare (offspring of a Turkoman horse and 

 a Flemish mare) by a bay English race-horse; this foal when 

 a week old was marked on its hinder quarters and on its 

 forehead with numerous, very narrow, dark, zebra-like bars, 

 and its legs were feebly striped: all the stripes soon disap- 

 peared completely. Without here entering on further details, 

 I may state that I have collected cases of leg and shoulder 

 stripes in horses of very different breeds in various countries 

 from Britain to Eastern China; and from Norway in the 

 north to the Malay Archipelago in the south. In all parts of 

 the world these stripes occur far oftenest in duns and mouse- 

 duns; by the term dun a large range of colour is included, 

 from one between brown and black to a close approach to 

 cream-colour. 



I am aware that Colonel Hamilton Smith, who has written 

 on this subject, believes that the several breeds of the horse 

 are descended from several aboriginal species — one of which, 

 the dun, was striped; and that the above-described appear- 

 ances are all due to ancient crosses with the dun stock. But 

 this view may be safely rejected ; for it is highly improbable 

 that the heavy Belgian cart-horse, Welsh ponies, Norwegian 

 cobs, the lanky Kattywar race, &c., inhabiting the most dis- 



