110 TELEGONY AND REVERSION. 



As in the zebras, the stripes are sometimes distinct, at 

 other times they have more or less run together. In 

 some zebras the leg below the knee is almost black ; perhaps 

 the much admired " black points " of the favourite bay 

 have resulted from the fusion of ancestral stripes on the 

 lower part of the legs. 



From a consideration of all the stinpes I have seen on 

 horses, I have come to the conclusion that the ancestral 

 horse was in its markings nearly intermediate between the 

 common and the Somali zebras. In Romulus we may have 

 a fairly accurate restoration of the stripes in the ancestors 

 of the Burchell zebras and, though less likely, also of some 

 of the markings in the ancestral horse. 



Having indicated to what extent recent horses may be 

 striped, the mane and tail may next be considered. The 

 attempt to arrive at any conclusion as to the mane and 

 tail of the ancestral horse may seem quite hopeless. 

 Endeavouring to settle whether the mane was long and 

 lank, or short and upright, and whether the tail could only 

 boast of long hairs at the tip, in say the horse of the 

 Pliocene epoch, may seem to some attempting the im- 

 possible. We sometimes hear of palgeozoologists recon- 

 structing an entire skeleton from a single bone— i-t may be 

 from a single tooth. I think we have the equivalent of at 

 least a fossil tooth in the markings on the face of the 

 Norwegian pony. These markings, distinct enough now 

 (October), wei-e strikingly evident in May, after the winter 

 coat was shed. Nevertheless they were unobserved for 

 months, for the simple reason that they were hidden under 

 a massive forelock. I may again say that I look upon the 

 incomplete stripes on this pony's forehead as relics of a 

 time when the horse had a striped face, not as rudiments 

 of stripes in process of development. Stripes are almost 

 invariably preceded by spots not very regular in their 

 arrangement — spots that if joined in one way give longi- 

 tudinal stripes, if in another transverse. The evolution of 

 stripes such as we find in zebras must have occupied count- 

 less ages, and their maintenance in a complete form must 



