TELEGONY AND REVERSION. 105 



few liglit hairs at tlie tip of tlie ears^ but immediately 

 below there is a broad black band, and an indistinct band 

 near the base. Had the tip been lighter in colour the ear 

 of this pony would have not a little resembled in its 

 decoration that of my Burchell zebra. 



Neck Stripes. — The Norwegian pony has only a short 

 shoulder stripe, but in an old bay Highland cob in my 

 possession a year ago the shoulder stripe was nearly a foot 

 in length. Sometimes the shoulder stripe bifurcates some 

 distance above the level of the shoulder- joint, and thus 

 suggests not so much the zebra as the quagga and zebra 

 hybrids. In the Norwegian pony there are a number of 

 ill-defined stripes in front of the shoulder stripe, and in 

 another light dun-coloured pony there are ten cervical 

 stripes. As these ten stripes only extend about halfway 

 along the neck, and as stripes are sometimes present 

 immediately behind the ears, there may have been quite 

 twenty stripes in the ancestors. As a rule the neck stripes 

 are short and indistinct, but in the Highland cob one 

 extended quite two thirds across the neck ; and in some 

 cases I have seen three or four cervical stripes nearly as 

 well defined as in the zebras. In one case I observed 

 several stripes extending into the mane. 



Body Stripes. — In the Norwegian with the partially 

 tattooed forehead there are only three short stripes on the 

 body behind the shoulder stripe, but there were six in the 

 Highland cob. Mr. Darwin, in discussing striping in 

 horses, says, " Stripes on the body, not to mention those 

 on the legs, are extremely rare — I speak after having long- 

 attended to the subject — with horses of all kinds in Europe, 

 and are unknown in the case of Arabians.""^ I have, how- 

 ever, before me a photograph of a mouse-dun Norwegian 

 pony showing vestiges of stripes nearly as far back as the 

 loins — as far back as in the Gore Ouseley filly (Fig. 15). 

 But it is not only important to prove that there were stripes 

 on the body, but also to determine if possible their 

 number and direction, and to ascertain whether they most 

 * 'Animals and Plants,' vol. i, p. 435. 



