TELKQONY AND KEVEKSION. 65 



ancestors of the horse of to-day were even more striped than 

 the recently extinguished quagga (Fig. 13). Granting rever- 

 sion, and granting also that the various breeds of horses have 

 descended from profusely striped ancestors, Weismann's 

 answer would be quite legitimate. But some biologists, 

 who are not prepared to allow that reversion of this kind 

 ever occurs, would not admit the relevancy of Weismann's 

 answer. If not adopting the " infection " explanation 



Fig. 13. 



.y"^- ' "^f 



Lord Morton's Quagga (after a drawing by Agasse). 



they would probably say the stripes on the colt and filly 

 were an instance of excessive or discontinuous variation — 

 their resemblance to ancestral mai-kings being a mere acci- 

 dental coincidence. 



Although it is impossible to prove that reversion occurs 

 in horses, as it admittedly does in pigeons, I beheve that 

 if the markings on Sir Gore Ouseley's '' colts " were not 

 due to the dam having been influenced in some way by the 



5 



