58 HORSES. Chap. U. 



however unlike in size and appearance, and several of those 

 in India and the Malay archipelago, present a similar range 

 and diversity of colour. The English race-horse, however, 

 is said '-^^ never to he dun-coloured ; but as dun and cream- 

 coloured horses are considered by the Arabs as worthless, 

 " and fit only for Jews to ride," ^^ these tints may have been 

 removed by long-continued selection. Horses of every colour, 

 and of such widely different kinds as dray-horses, cobs, and 

 ponies, are all occasionally dappled,^^ in the same manner as 

 is so conspicuous with grey horses. This fact does not throw 

 any clear light on the colouring of the aboriginal horse, but 

 is a case of analogous variation, for even asses are sometimes 

 dappled, and I have seen, in. the British Museum, a hybrid 

 from the ass and zebra dappled on its hinder quarters. By 

 the expression analogous variation (and it is one that I 

 shall often have occasion to use) I mean a variation occurring 

 in a species or variety which resembles a normal character in 

 another and distinct species or variety. Analogous variations 

 may arise, as will be explained in a future chapter, from two 

 or more forms with a similar constitution having been ex- 

 posed to similar conditions, — or from one of two forms having 

 reacquired through reversion a character inherited by the 

 other form from their common progenitor, — or from both 

 forms having reverted to the same ancestral character. We 

 shall immediately see that horses occasionall}' exhibit a ten- 

 dency to become striped over a large part of their bodies ; 

 and as we know that in the varieties of the domestic cat and 

 in several feline species stripes readily pass into spots and 

 cloudy marks — even the cubs of the uniformly-coloured lion 

 being spotted with dark marks on a lighter ground — we 

 may suspect that the dappling of the, horse, which has been 



^'' 'The Field,' July 13th, 1861, p. because it has been stated (Martin, 



42. 'History of the Horse,' p. 134) that 



'* E. Vernon Harcourt, 'Sporting duns are never dappled. Martin (p. 



in Algeria,' p. 26. 205) refers to dappled asses. In the 



^- 1 state this from my owa obser- Farrier' (London, 1828, pp.453, 455) 



vations made during several years on there are some gooi remarks on the 



the colours of horses. I have seen dappling of horses ; and likewise in 



cream-coloured, light-dun and mouse- Col. Hamilton Smith on 'The Horse.* 

 dun horses dappled, which I mention 



