TKANSACTIONS OF SECTION D. 679 



an upriofht mane is always accompanied by a tail deficient of hairs at tlie root — 

 in the tilly the tail is as perfect as that of her Arab sire. We have still stronger 

 evidence that the allegation of the groom was nnfouoded from drawings (of the 

 chestnut mare, her three 'colts,' the blade Arab, the qiiagga, and the quagga 

 hybrid) by Agasse, a very reliable animal painter of the early part of last 

 Century. In the drawing of the filly the mane is represented as lying to one side, 

 as in Arabs and other well-bred horses. The pictures (now in the Museum of the 

 Koyal College of Snrgeons, London) were made because the subsequent foals 

 were believed to prove the truth of the ' infection' doctrine. Had the mane of 

 the filly been erect it would hardly have escaped the keen eyes of the artist. 

 Bat had Agasse by any chance missed this all-important detail, Lord Morton or 

 some of those interested would doubtless have called his attention to the matter. 

 If the mane of an Arab is completely removed early in the spring it is stilt', and 

 upright in the autumn, but hanging to one side close to the neck in the following 

 summer. AVhen the whole circumstances are taken into consideration, there 

 seems to me no escape from the conclusion that the mane of the filly was upright 

 when seen by Lord Morton in August 1820, and lying to one side when painted 

 by Agasse the following summer, because it had been regularly cropped or at least 

 hogged some months before Lord Morton's visit. But whatever be the explanation 

 of the want of agreement between the mane as seen by Lord Morton and as 

 depicted by Agasse, it will, I think, be admitted that the evidence artbrded by the 

 mane of the filly is hardly sufficient to establish the truth of the doctrine of 

 telegouy. Of still less value is the evidence afibrded by the make, coat-colour, 

 and markings which were apparently too indistinct to deserve the name of stripes. 

 The colts were decidedly Arab-like, of a bay colour marked more or less ' in a 

 darker tint.' Judging from Agasse's drawings they closely resemble Arab-Indian 

 crosses ; they are, in fact, in make very like the Arab-Kathiawar horse already 

 referred to. I have seen a bay Highland cob with as many stripes as Lord 

 Morton's colts, and pure-bred Arabs of a dun colour with stripes on the neck and 

 far more distinct leg bars than those depicted by Agasse. I believe the colts 

 owed their stripes and colour, not to ' infection ' of their dam by her previous mate 

 the quagga, but to reversion. It is quite possible the black Arabian horse was ot 

 mixed origin ; that the chestnut mare was crossbred is admitted. As in the west 

 of Ireland the oflspring of black and chestnut ponies are sometimes of a 

 decidedly dun colour, it is not surprising that the black Arab and the half-bred 

 chestnut had bay oflspring. INeither are the stripes surprising. I recently ascer- 

 tained that the chestnut mare was presented to Lord Morton (while serving with 

 his regiment in India) by one of his officers — Mr. Boswell of Ueeside, Aberdeen- 

 shire — and that she was most likely a cross between an Arab and a countrv-bred 

 pony. In Katliiawar the ponies when pure-bred are of a rufous grey colour and 

 more or less richly striped. If in the chestnut mare there was any Kathiawar or 

 even any native pony blood its oflspring to a black sire might have been expected 

 to be of a dun colour and striped. In a word, there is no reason for assuming 

 that the foals would have been less striped if the chestnut mare had been mated 

 with the black Arab first and the quagga afterwards. 



By way of testing the truth of the ' infection ' doctrine I started, in 1895, a 

 number of experiments, and especially arranged to repeat as accurately as possible, 

 what is commonly called Lord iNIorton's experiment. Since then twelve mares, after 

 producing sixteen zebra hybrids, a mule, and a hinny, have had an opportunity of 

 supporting the telegony hypothesis by giving birth to twenty-two pure-bred foals. 



During the same period Baron de Parana of Brazil has bred at least six zebra 

 hybrids, and some of the dams of these hybrids subsequently produced ordinary 

 foals. Further, Baron de Parana has for a number of years been engaged in 

 crossing cattle and in watching the results obtained in several mule-breedin"- 

 establishments, where from 400 to 1,000 brood mares are kept. As in these 

 establishments the mares breed mules and horses alternately — two or three mules 

 and then a horse foal — there has been carried on for some years, under the observa- 

 tion of Baron de Parana, a telegony experiment on a gigantic scale. 



The single hybrid bred by Lord Morton had extremely few stripes, and only 



Y Y2 



