GENERAL INTRODUCTION. Ixxvii 



paper, are caused by the hair being arranged in well- 

 marked tracks or ridges, separated by almost hairless 

 spaces. In these tracks, which were very distinct at 

 birth in a cinnamon-coloured foal I bred this year, out of 

 a bay half- Arab mare — the sire was a chestnut thorough- 

 bred horse — we have, it may be, a restoi-ation for a time 

 of an ancestral condition. Sometimes, along with these 

 hair-tracks or ridges, there are faint stripes seen only in 

 certain lights, but evidently in part due to subtle colour- 

 ing. Stripes of this nature I noticed plentifully scattered 

 over a reddish-grey foal out of my flea-bitten New Forest 

 pony by the grey Arab, Benazrek. More common and 

 more evident are comparatively broad wavy bands, often 

 seen across the croup and on the brow of half-bred bay 

 foals. These bands may occupy the position of ancestral 

 sti-ipes — stripes out of which the colour has been com- 

 pletely washed since they ceased to count in the struggle 

 for existence. My reason for supposing they repi-esent 

 ancestral stripes is based on the fact that they occupy 

 the position of stripes in a yellow-dun Norwegian pony, 

 and of the stripes over the croup of one of Lady Meux^s 

 hybrids, which may have been inherited either from the 

 American trotting horse or from a remote common an- 

 cestor. I am now satisfied that foals are far more often 

 marked with stripes — apparent or real — than is generally 

 supposed, and that stripes will be often seen in horses if 

 they are carefully looked for. From this it follows that 

 the stripes on the " colts " bred by Sir Gore Ouseley 

 out of Lord Morton's mare by the black Arab horse are, 

 after all, not so very remarkable. The zebra, Matopo, 

 having failed to " infect " four mares, it is quite evident 

 that telegony does not invariably occur, as many breeders 

 believe. It remains to be. seen whether it occurs in even 

 1 or 2 per cent, of cases, as was supposed by Romanes. 

 I have now eight mares that, i£ telegony is true, may 

 liave been infected. I hope to continue breeding from 

 these mares and from their offspring for some years to 

 come, in order to give the supposed infection an oppor- 

 tunity of showing itself. If, out of fifty or a hundred of 



