Ixxii GENERAL INTRODUCTION. 



fifty pure-bred foals^ the offspring of mares that had been 

 previously mated with my zebra stallion^ there is not a 

 single instance of " infection/' the telegony dogma will 

 be so discredited that it may in future be neglected by 

 horse breeders ; and if similar results follow experiments 

 with dogs, rabbits, and other animals, the hypothesis 

 ought ere long to be regai'ded as a mere superstition, and 

 finally take its place with the barnacle tree and other 

 legends of a credulous past. 



In the last of the three papers. Mulatto's second 

 foal is described at some length. Since the description 

 was written I have seen faint stripes on the croup of two 

 pure-bred foals, I have also seen stripes more distinct 

 than the bands on black cats over the shoulders and sides 

 of an old very dark mouse-dun Highland cob, and frag- 

 ments of as many stripes as occurred in the quagga in a 

 leather-dun Norwegian pony. These striped foals and 

 horses, taken along with the foal bred by Darwin, which 

 had a striped face as well as stripes across the croup, 

 point to the conclusion that all the stripes on Mulatto's 

 second foal may very well have been due to simple re- 

 version. If next spring Mulatto, as is hoped, has a 

 foal to a pony of her own peculiar strain, further light 

 may be shed on this interesting but obscure problem. 



Three of the four mares that in 1897 had hybrids, have 

 each during 1898 had a foal to a horse sire ; the fourth 

 mare has again a hybrid by Matopo. It will be well to 

 refer to these foals separately. 



(a) Tundra's Subsequent Foal. — Tundra, the yellow and 

 white (skewbald) Iceland pony, has had in all three 

 foals. Her first, sired by an Iceland pony, was a bay ; 

 her second is the zebra-hybrid Heckla, born May 22nd, 

 1897 ; her third (born June 15th, 1898) is a skewbald, the 

 sire being a bay Shetland pony. Heckla, as already 

 pointed out, is very dark in colour, indistinctly striped, 

 and in tnake and action like a well-bred pony. Neither 

 in colour, make, nor disposition does the last foal show 

 the faintest resemblance to the previous zebra sire, nor 

 yet to her half-sister Heckla. As already mentioned, the 



