TELKGONY AND REVEKSION, 117 



often liavd to see. From a yellowish brown tint the various 

 shades of yellow, red, and mouse duns might be easily 

 derived; and from a combination of these shades the 

 formation of bays, chestnuts, and browns would be only 

 a matter of time or of artificial selection. 



In the foals of all shades of Arab, English, Norwegian, 

 and Iceland horses, being with few exceptions at birth of 

 a bay or chestnut tint, and frequently provided with a 

 dorsal band and with leg stripes which ordinarily dis- 

 appear, we have, it seems to me, evidence of reversion. 

 For a remarkable instance of the transitory striping of a 

 foal we are indebted to Darwin. In a chapter bearing on 

 the colour and stripes of the horse he says : " The most 

 interesting case which I have met with occurred in a colt 

 of my own breeding. A bay mare (descended from a dark 

 brown Flemish mare by a light grey Turcoman horse) was 

 put to Hercules, a thoroughbred dark bay, whose sire 

 (Kingston) and dam were both bays. The colt ultimately 

 turned out brown, but when only a fortnight old it was a 

 dirty bay, shaded with mouse grey, and in parts with a 

 yellowish tint; it had only a trace of the spinal stripe, 

 with a few obscure transverse bars on the legs, but almost 

 the whole body was marked with very narrow dark stripes, 

 in most parts so obscure as to be visible only in certain 

 lights, like the stripes which may be seen on black kittens. 

 These stripes were distinct on the hind quarters, where 

 they diverged from the spine and pointed a little forwards ; 

 many of them as they diverged became a little branched, 

 exactly in the same manner as in some zebrine species. 

 The stripes were plainest on the forehead between the ears, 

 where they formed a set of pointed arches one under the 

 other, decreasing in size downwards towards the muzzle ; 

 exactly similar marks may be seen on the forehead of the 

 quagga and Burchell's zebra.-^ When this foal was two 

 or three months old all the stripes entirely disappeared." t 



* A figure sliowing tlie extent or arrangement of the stripes on tliis 

 colt would have been invaluable. 



t ' Animals and Plants under Domestication,' vol. i, 2ud edit., p. 60. 



