POSITION AND STRUCTURE OF HORSE 57 



safely be regarded as the ancestor of many of the 

 domesticated European breeds, it may be suggested 

 that dappling is an attribute of the Arab stock, 

 which, as will be shown later, there is considerable 

 reason to regard as being derived from a species 

 different to the one which gave rise to the original 

 domesticated horses of Western Europe. It is quite 

 true that there are difficulties in regard to this 

 suQfSfestion ; one of them beino- that we have no 

 information as to when Arab or Barb blood was 

 first introduced among the horses of Western Europe, 

 while we are equally in the dark as to whether 

 dappling always occurred among the latter, or 

 whether it is a foreign feature. 



It does, however, appear very strange that if 

 dappling be a remnant of an ancient type of colour- 

 ing at one period characteristic of the horse tribe 

 in general, it should have completely died out in 

 all wild species, to reappear in the domesticated 

 breeds of Equus caballus. And the only way out 

 of the difficulty seems to be the above suggestion, 

 that the progenitor of the Arab and Barb was a 

 dappled bay horse. 



As regards the inheritance of coat-colour among 

 horses, it appears, according to Mr. R. Bunsow,^ 

 that in the case of thoroughbreds, bays (including 

 browns) may be either pure as regards the power 

 of transmitting their colour to their offspring, or 



^ The Mendel Journal^ London, No. 2, p. 74, 191 1. 



