226 THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES 



by Mr. W W. Edwards, tliat with the English racehorse 

 the spinal stripe is much commoner in the foal than in 

 the full-grown animal. I have myself recently bred a 

 foal from a bay mare (offspring of a Turkoman horse 

 and a Flemish mare) by a bay English racehorse; this 

 foal when a week old was marked on its hinder quarters 

 and on its forehead with numerous, very narrow, dark, 

 zebra-like bars, and its legs were feebly striped: all the 

 stripes soon disappeared completely. Without here enter- 

 ing on further details, I may state that I have collected 

 cases of leg and shoulder stripes in horses of very differ- 

 ent breeds in various countries from Britain to Eastern 

 China; and from Norway in the north to the Malay 

 Archipelago in the south. In all parts of the world 

 these stripes occur far oftenest in duns* and mouse-duns; 

 by the term dun a large range of color is included, from 

 one between brown and black to a close approach to 

 cream-color, 



I am aware that Colonel Hamilton Smith, who has 

 written on this subject, believes that the several breeds 

 of the horse are descended from several aboriginal spe- 

 cies — one of which, the dun, was striped; and that the 

 above-described appearances are all due to ancient crosses 

 with the dun stock. But this view may be safely re- 

 jected; for it is highly improbable that the heavy Bel- 

 gian carthorse, Welsh ponies, Norwegian cobs, the lanky 

 Kattywar race, etc, inhabiting the most distant parts of 

 the world, should all have been crossed with one sup- 

 posed aboriginal stock. 



Now let us turn to the effects of crossing the several 

 species of the horse-genus, RoUin asserts that the com- 

 mon mule from the ass and horse is particularly apt to 



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