THE EVOLUTION OF PATTERNS OF HAIR 63 



There are pictured here the normal type, divergent hair- 

 streams partially reversed, simple whorls in different regions, a 

 whorl and feathering, whorls, featherings and crests, and these in 

 several areas. It is a veritable portrait gallery in which is portrayed 

 the earliest and latest stages of this family of fashions in hair on 

 the horse's neck. They are grouped mostly in pairs. 



Fig. 6 shows the normal slope and by its side Fig. 7 gives 

 a view of the best specimen of a completed whorl, feathering and 

 crest I have been able to examine, the whole length of the neck 

 being occupied by it. So in this pair the normal and most extensive 

 departure from it lie side by side. 



Fig. 8 shows the way in which two streams of hair close up 

 to the ears begin to diverge. Fig. 9 a similar divergence towards 

 the base of the neck. 



Fig. 10 gives not only a divergence, but a well-marked turn in 

 the upper hair-stream and Fig. 11 the way in which this divergent 

 turn of hair is being converted into a feathering. 



Fig. 12 presents a stream of hair still more twisted from its 

 course than that of Fig. 10, and Fig. 13 a whorl going on to a 

 feathering which loses itself, without coming to an abrupt stop 

 in a crest which is the more usual course. 



Fig. 14 is a common type of whorl, feathering and crest in 

 the most usual situation. Fig. 15 a rarer and more complicated 

 instance of a simple whorl, a gap and then a whorl, feathering and 

 crest in the same " critical area." 



Fig. 16 and Fig. 17 are rare cases of irregularly placed double 

 whorls, featherings and crests, and give evidence of unusually 

 complicated traction of adjoining muscles underneath this battle- 

 field of hair. 



Figs. 18 and 19 show a simple whorl, situated at the very edge 

 of the mane, a very " critical " area because this looser and heavy 

 part of the neck is very much subject to jolting during the 

 horse's action. 



I have little to add to the graphic evidence afforded by these 

 pictures, each of which I observed noted and sketched as the bearers 

 of them came before me during many years of a " Captain-Cuttle- 

 like " disposal of some of my leisure. No clearer proof can be 

 desired of the view here advanced, that habit or habitual muscular 

 action, and jolting, is the cause of the varied patterns in this field, 

 and that according to the Law of Parcimony no other is required, 

 this canon of Occam being expressed more succinctly — Neither 

 more, nor more onerous causes are to be assumed than are necessary 

 to account for the phenomena. 



