466 THE ORIGIN OF THE LIBYAN HORSE [CH. 



stars as due to in-breeding, and doubtless such markings may 

 well arise from that cause. But there is no reason why they 

 should not likewise occur under natural conditions, for the 

 Quagga which turned bay in an environment similar to that in 

 which the Libyan horses lived, had " a little white in the fore- 

 head" (p. 77), and the Elgin specimen also has white on the 

 face. Prof. Ewart has a photograph of a Mountain zebra with 

 a 'stocking/ whilst the white legs of the Burchell zebra and 

 the Quagga are only more thoroughgoing examples of the 

 same tendency. As the North African horse had a star in the 

 forehead before 1000 B.C., and as the Libyans do not seem to 

 have given any thought to artificial breeding down to the 

 time of Christ, it is difficult to suppose that the stars and 

 ' stockings ' in Libyan horses were the result of in-breeding. 



Nor is this all, for another argument of great weight is 

 supplied by the colour of the skin. We have already shown 

 that from the beginning of written history white horses are 

 found all across Upper Europe and Upper Asia, and we found 

 reasons for believing that wherever white horses make their 

 appearance in Mediterranean lands, such as Greece, Italy, Sicily, 

 Egypt, and North Africa, they are the result of importations 

 from more northern regions, as was certainly the case with the 

 famous white horses of Dionysius of Syracuse, the strain 

 having been imported by that despot from the Veneti at the 

 head of the Adriatic, whilst the white and grey Arabs found in 

 Egypt and North Africa in modern times are imported thither 

 from Syria and other parts of Asia Minor. 



It has also been shown that there is no tendency to revert 

 to dun or white colour among the thousands of Pampas horses 

 .which are descended from the North African horse. Thus a 

 light colour dun, skewbald, or white is an essential charac- 

 teristic of Upper European and Upper Asiatic horses, whilst 

 a dark bay or brown, with a constant tendency to stripes, is the 

 stamp of the Barbary horse and the true Arab of Al-Khamseh. 

 Moreover it has been clearly shown that the blue-black, 

 antimony-like colour of the skin of Al-Khamseh horses is so 

 marked a feature that it has furnished the generic name for the 

 breed (Kohl), It will be remembered that the skin is of this 



