d» TELEGONT AND REVERSION. 



quagga tliej resulted from reversion. I prefer the rever- 

 sion explanation^ because it seems to me to be simpler and 

 more in accordance with established facts. I have fre- 

 quently seen numerous zebra- or quagga-like stripes not 

 only in foals but also in aged horses^ stripes on the face 

 as well as on the shoulder, neck, body, and legs. Hence 

 the possibility of reversion may in the meantime be taken 

 for granted, and the further question asked. Were the 

 markings on the " colts " sufficient in themselves to prove 

 that the Arabian mare had been infected by the quagga ? 

 I think it must be admitted that the stripes taken by them- 

 selves are barely sufficient to prove infection. If the paint- 

 ings by Agasse (in the Royal College of Surgeons' Museum, 

 Lincoln's Inn Fields, London) are accurate, Lord Morton's 

 quagga-hybrid (Fig. 14) was but feebly striped. Agasse 

 shows three distinctbut short stripes across the left shoulder, 

 four faint and still shorter stripes on the neck, ten cross- 

 stripes on the fore-leg — six of them between the knee and 

 the elbow — and nine cross-markings on the hind leg, five 

 of which lie above the hock. When I first saw Agasse's 

 drawing of the quagga-hybrid I was surprised at the 

 meagreness of the striping. In all my hybrids there are 

 more stripes than in their zebra sire, and the general, though 

 not universal, result of crossing zebra mares with asses and 

 horses has been the production of abuuda,ntly striped off- 

 spring. Further, although there were no cross bars (Fig. 18) 

 on the legs of the quagga,^ there were more stripes on the 

 legs of the hybrid than elsewhere. Hence in the case of 

 the hybrid at least we seem to have certain evidence of 

 reversion — reversion to the ancestors of the horse or the 

 quagga, or as Mr. Galton would perhaps put it, regression 

 to the ancestral mid-parent. t I have had in my possession 

 horses with more stripes than are represented by Agasse 

 in Lord Morton's quagga-hybrid, and hence it would be 



* Although, as far as I am aware, tliere are no stripes on tlie legs of the 

 quaggas preserved in museums, I understand quagga foals bad sometimes 

 striped legs. 



t 'Natural Inheritance,' London, 1SS9. 



