io6 THE HORSE AND ITS RELATIVES 



" With respect to the primitive colour of the 

 horse having been dun, Colonel Hamilton Smith 

 has collected a large body of evidence showing 

 that this tint was common in the East as far 

 back as the time of Alexander, and that the wild 

 horses of Western Asia and Eastern Europe now 

 are, or recently were, of various shades of dun. 

 It seems that not very long ago a wild breed of 

 dun-coloured horses with a spinal stripe was pre- 

 served in the royal parks in Prussia. I hear from 

 Hungary that the inhabitants of that country look 

 at the duns with a spinal stripe as the aboriginal 

 stock, and so it is in Norway." 



To this it may be added that dun horses, 

 although not necessarily of pure blood, were formerly 

 common in Spain, where, as in some other parts 

 of Europe, they were considered to be the worst 

 type of all ; the eel-backed being, however, a little 

 better than the self-coloured dun.^ Perhaps this 

 is the reason why in the sixth chapter of Revela- 

 tion the " pale horse," '/tttto? jj^XwpoV, that is to say, 

 the horse of the colour of withered grass, or dun, 

 is assigned to Death. 



Be this as it may, the general tendency of the 

 foregoing evidence is to show that the eel-dun 

 horses of Norway and other parts of Europe not 

 only represent a very ancient type, but that they 



^ See Ridgeway, Origin and Influence of the Thoroughbred Horse, 

 pp. 260, 348. 



