THE STRIPES IN THE ASS. 



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parts of their bodies with a reddish or bay shade. Hence we may conclude that if grey and reddish 

 brown Asses had been steadily selected and bred from, the shoulder-stripe would ha^e been almost a 

 generally and as completely lost as in the case of the Horse. 



-The shoulder-stripe on the Ass is sometimes double, and Mr. Blyth has seen even three or four 



parallel stripes. I have observed in ten cases shoulder-stripes abruptly truncated at the lower end 



with the anterior angle produced into a tapering point, precisely as has been figured in the Dun 



)evonshire Pony. I have seen three cases of a terminal portion abruptly and angularly bent, and 



two cases of a distinct, though slight, forking. In Syria, Dr. Hooker and his party obsived for me 



ONAGER. 



no less than five instances of the shoulder-stripe being plainly forked over the fore leg. In the 

 common Mule it is likewise sometimes forked. When Spist noticed the forking and angular bending 

 of the shoulder-stripe, I had seen enough of the stripes in the various equine species to feel convinced 

 that even a character so unimportant as this had a distinct meaning, and was thus led to attend to the 

 subject. I now find that in the Asinus Burchettii and Quagga, the stripe which corresponds with 

 the shoulder-stripe of the Ass, as well as some of the stripes on the neck, bifurcate, and that some of 

 those near the shoulder have their extremities angularly bent backwards. The forking and angular 

 bending of the stripes on the shoulders apparently stand in relation with the changed direction of the 

 nearly upright stripes on the sides of the body and neck to the transverse bars on the legs. Finally, 

 we see that the presence of shoulder, leg- and spinal-stripes in the Horse, their occasional absence in 

 the Ass, the occurrence of double and triple shoulder-stripes in both animals, and the similar manner 

 in which these stripes terminate at their lower extremities, are all cases of analogous variation in the 

 Horse and Ass. These cases are probably not due to similar conditions acting on similar constitutions, 



