Horses, Ztbra», anil Td/wV.v. 413 



like those on the body of zebras; but for the mo3t part the 

 lilies are deciiledly loii;;itudiiial. The stripes are also 

 lon<;itudinal across the thighs up to the root of the tail 

 in all eebras ; and this arrangenient may be u primitive 

 iVature. In young ta[)ir8, where the legs are spotted, 

 the spots often form abbreviated stripes at right angles 

 to tlie axis of the limbs, and the spots are present on 

 the in.side as well as on the outside of the limbs. In all 

 zebras in wiiich the logs are fully marked the strij)e3 are 

 present both on the inside and the outside, and their diicctiou 

 is always at right angles to the long axis of the limbs. H^ii 

 in some young tapirs the legs below the " knees " and 

 " hocks " are unspotted, and thus recall the black "points" 

 of many horses. On the head in young tapirs the spots 

 fiequently tend to run into longitudinal lines. In zebras 

 also the white marks form longitudinal lines at least on the 

 area in front of the eyes. 



In the young of T. roulini the belly is brown; in that of 

 T. terrestiis it is white; but in that of 2\ indicus it is 

 distinctly spotted with white like the rest of the body. In 

 fully marked zebras the belly is striped like the rest of the 

 botly, and in those in which the belly is white the whiteness 

 has evidently been acquired by the suppression of the dark 

 banJs. Finally, in all the young tajnrs * exhibited in the 

 Museum the nuse is dark and uns[jotted. In all zebras the 

 muzzle is mostly or wholly black or ashy grey, and never 

 marked with \\ liite. 



It is needless to insist upon the importance of these resem- 

 blances, since Johnston's hypothesis supplies an explanation 

 of them. 



The greatest apparent difficulty in the way of accepting 

 this author's view is presented, not by the zebras, but by 

 the Asiatic and African donkeys, by Prjevalsky's horse, and 

 by certain domestic breeds like the dun. Now if these 

 animals exhibited a primitive style of coloration, showing 

 dark stripes in an incipient stage of development, the fact 

 would be practically destructive of Johnston's hypothesis. 

 But this is not so. All the evidence goes to prove that 

 the coloration of these species is highly specialized and 

 derivable from a type resembling that of zebras in a general 



• The nose of the example of T. indicus ia denuded of hiiir. But a 

 figure of th« youii); of this specit^s iu J. Ci. Wood'a * Illustrated Xiitural 

 Ilirttorv,' vol. i. p. 74 1, shows tliis part to bo dark ivud uiispotU'd. Ther»» 

 is nbo »in excflh'Ht plioto.'niph of the youu^f of this sjiocios published by 

 Dr. Mitchell in T. Z. t>. I'JO-'', p. 76i), which shows, 1 believe, the same 

 feature, th<' piile |>atch oo the suout being merely reflected lipht. 



