154 TELEGONY AND REVERSION. 



evident^ owing to the intermediate spaces being better 

 clothed. 



The ridges in the young foal and the rows of relatively 

 long thick hairs in the foetuses agree very closely, if not 

 absolutely, with the lines of moisture seen on a horse when 

 it begins to perspire, and with the lines followed by the 

 water after a light shower. In the prematurely born foals, 

 two phases in the evolution of the coat of the horse may 

 be represented; the least developed seems to point to a 

 time when there was but a sparse covering of hair, but yet 

 with the hair so arranged that it served to carry off the 

 rain as rapidly as possible along definite lines. 



When the skin showing the narrow parallel ridges and 

 furrows is examined, the mane is seen to extend nearly to 

 a level with the flank feather. From the withers the hair 

 of the mane gets gradually shorter, but it runs in the 

 same direction and has the same structure as the hair 

 forming the mane in front of the withers. From the part 

 of the mane behind the withers, ridges quite a quarter of 

 an inch v^ide run downwards and slightly backwards over 

 the sides. Over the croup there is a smooth patch of hair 

 of a lozenge shape, rqeasuring about six inches by one and 

 a half at the widest part — a patch corresponding to the 

 wide portion of the dorsal band in zebras and horses. 

 From the front part of the lozenge about fourteen narrow 

 ridges arch outwards and downwards in front of the 

 flank feather (Fig. 45) ; while from the back part equally 

 narrow ridges arch backwards over the hind quarters — the 

 upper ones approaching each other as they proceed towards 

 the root of the tail. Filling up the space between these 

 two sets of ridges are others which spring from the flank 

 feather, some bending downwards in front, others behind, 

 the feather, towards the stifle. Fig. 45 indicates the 

 arrangement of the ridges around the upper end of the 

 right flank feather. Fig. 46 shows the appearance the hair 

 presents in the space immediately above the flank feather 

 (lying within the four circles shown in fig. 45) Avhen the 

 skin is held up against the light. In a week-old cinnamon- 



