158 TBLEGONY AKD REVERSION. 



tliere were narrow bands over the ci'oup from tlie first. 

 In Matopo the croup and hind quarters are almost entirely 

 occupied with the three flank stripes. 



Evidently the bars across the croup in Mulatto's second 

 foal have not been inherited directly from the first sire — 

 Matopo. Their presence might be accounted for by saying 

 they were latent in Mulatto, and that mating her with a 

 horse of a different strain led to their development. But 

 the offspring of the bay mare and of the dark-grey pony 

 by the same Arab horse, showed no markings across the 

 hind quarters. Is this because bays and dark greys are 

 less liable to produce striped offspring ? If the croup 

 stripes in the second foal were not inherited from or induced 

 by the Arab horse, they, it may be argued, can only be 

 explained by saying that Mulatto has been in some way 

 influenced by her first mate — the zebra Matopo. 



It thus appears that in Mulatto's second foal, (1) the 

 stripes which most frequently occur in horses were absent; 

 (2) that there were certain stripes which are not uncommon 

 in horses ; and (3) that the most distinct mai^kings present, 

 viz. the stripes across the croup, are extremely rare in 

 both foals and horses. While some of the stripes can 

 easily be accounted for by simple reversion, it is difficult 

 to account for others in this way. 



In favour of the croup stripes having resulted from a 

 simple reversion due to the crossing of somewhat diverse 

 types, the experience of Darwin may be advanced. His 

 striped colt was of a mixed origin. The dam was a 

 descendant of a dark brown Flemish mare by a light grey 

 Turcoman horse. The sire was Hercules, a thoroughbred 

 dark bay, whose sire (Kingston) and dam were both bays. 

 If the crossing of distinct types leads to reversion, 

 we can well understand Darwin's striped colt being an 

 example of reversion ; and in the same way the striping in 

 Mulatto's second foal might also be due to mating more 

 or less distinct strains. Again, from the fact that the 

 second foal had stripes across the croup instead of rows of 

 spots as in Romulus, it might be argued that they could 



