406 Mr. E. I. Poctck on the Colours of 



muzzle in front of the nostrils and the lips is never piiik^ but 

 some shade, darker or lighter, of ashy black or grey. 



A second very common sign of albinism is the appearance 

 of white in varying amount on the area of one or more of the 

 leo-s below the knees and hocks. When the wliite affects 

 only the fetlocks and pasterns it forms a " bracelet," when 

 it extends to the knees and hocks it is called a " stockii)g." 

 The albinistic nature of bracelets and stockings is betrayed 

 by the whiteness, partial or complete, of the hoofs ; for, 

 reverting once more to the Asiatic asses, not to mention the 

 true Quagga, however nearly white the legs may be, the 

 hoofs are always black with a narrow rim above them darker 

 than the colour of the rest o£ the fetlock. 



When in blacks, bays, or chestnuts the white appears as 

 patches on the body, it gives rise to piebalds and skewbalds. 



Thus it appears certain that the white star, blaze, bracelets, 

 stockings, and blotches on the body in all domestic horses are 

 evidences of partial albinism, and cannot be regarded as 

 characters inherited from one or more wild ancestral types *. 

 Tiie same may probably be said of the white that appears in 

 roans. That roan colour belongs to the same category as bay 

 and black is suggested by the dark tint of the head, mane, 

 tail, and legs in typical roan-coloured horses ; but in these 

 the white is distributed all over the body, without affecting, 

 however, all the hairs. Thus, eliminating from this category 

 blacks as melanistic and chestnuts as erythristic sports, roans 

 and piebalds as exhibiting partial albinism, and, for the same 

 reason, all horses showing white marks upon the head or 

 legs, there only remain, as perhaps representing a primitive 

 unaltered type of coloration, bays with black points. 



Reasoning from different premises. Prof. Ridgewaj- f has 

 come to the conclusion that there was at one time a wild 

 horse of this colour in Libya, from which the so-called Arabs 

 of English literature are descended. And if, as I believe, 

 chestnuts are erythristic sports, Mr. Wilfrid Blunt's % opinion 

 that chestnut is the original colour of Arabs (Kehailans) is 

 untenable. Moreover, if the above-given explanation of 

 " black," '' chestnut," and " white " is correct, it does not, in 



* Precisely the same conclusion has been independently reached by 

 Prof. Ewart, who states (P. R. Soc, Oct. 9, 1909j, in a paper not seen by 

 me until after mine was in the printer's hands, that his experiments in 

 horse-breeding show that " stars " and bracelets are not ancestral traits, 

 as Prof. Ridgeway supposed them to be. 



t ' Origin and Influence of the Thoroughbred Horse,' 1905. 



X " Arabian Horse,'" in the ' Standard Cyclopedia of Modern Agricul- 

 ture,' i. p. 180 (1908). 



