IV] THE ORIGIN OF THE LIBYAN HORSE 475 



Finally, how comes it that no breed of Asiatic horse has 

 ever been so improved by careful selection, or even by the 

 admixture of African blood, as to be able to contend in speed 

 with the latter, unless it be that the North African horse has 

 been differentiated from the Asiatic horses during a very long 

 lapse of time ? It has been pointed out that the English 

 thoroughbred only really arose when mares as well as horses 

 of North African blood were imported by Charles II, and it is 

 a well-known fact that no three-quarters bred horse has ever 

 beaten a thoroughbred. The astonishing superiority in speed 

 of North African horses over all others seems to indicate that 

 that strain is the outcome of natural specialisation carried on 

 through countless generations. 



We have now examined the available data for tracing the 

 history of the thoroughbred horse, and we found that the 

 historical evidence put it beyond doubt that it originated in 

 North Africa, from whence it has gradually kept spreading 

 northward and eastward from at least 1000 B.C. The evidence 

 of its characteristic bay colour, the not unfrequent occurrence of 

 stripes on its head, body and legs, its dark skin resembling that 

 of the zebras, its special fecundity in North Africa, all point to 

 its being no merely artificial breed formed under domestication 

 by careful selection by man, but indicate clearly that it is 

 a distinct variety developed during a long succession of time 

 in Libya, under conditions similar to those which have produced 

 some of the zebras with their finely-formed limbs, their dark 

 skin, and striped bodies. The only other conceivable alter- 

 native is that domestic horses from Asia were crossed in North 

 Africa with some variety of striped African Equidae. I men- 

 tioned this as a not wholly impossible alternative when writing 

 in 1902, for the fecundity of zebra-horse hybrids had been held 

 as not impossible by leading experts 1 , and as an animal deposited 

 by the King in the Zoological Garden, Regent's Park 2 , in that 

 year was alleged by some to be the offspring of a horse and a 

 zebra-hybrid. But as Prof. Ewart has now demonstrated the 

 sterility of zebra-horse hybrids, and since the animal sent home 



1 Ewart, Guide to the Zebra Hybrids (Edinburgh, 1900), p. 34. 



2 Proc. ZooL Soc., 1902, Vol. n. p. 225. 



