C 331 ] 



XXVIII. 



THE INHEEITANOE OF COAT COLOUE IN HORSES. 



By JAMES WILSON, M.A., B.Sc, 

 Professor of Agriculture in the Royal College of Science, Dublin. 



[Eead January 23 : Ordered for Publication February 8 : Published April 12, 1910.] 



The data wliich this or any similar paper must rely upon are unfortunately 

 not of the highest accuracy, and reasonably reliable results can be obtained 

 only when the inaccuracies are appraised and fairly allowed for. The chief 

 source of inaccuracy lies in the indefinite and varying notions of horse- 

 breeders as to the colours of tlieir stock. Many Thoroughbreds are described 

 as " bay or brown," others as " brown or black " ; and grey and roan are some- 

 times confused : the breeder's eye seeing perhaps what the mind would like 

 it to see. Clydesdale breeders have tried to be more accurate with regard to 

 bays and browns, for they enter " light " bays and " dark " bays, and 

 "light," "dark," and even "very dark" browns; but it is doubtful whether 

 this very attempt has not placed many bays among browns and browns 

 among bays. At the same time they have an aversion to calling a roan 

 a roan. 



It may be long before the distinction between the rufous coat of the bay 

 and the darker coat of the brown is clearly and generally known ; but the 

 other common colours should present no great difficulty. Unless wlien wliite 

 " socks " or " stockings " have intruded, the legs of bays and browns are 

 black towards the ground, but the body-colour of chestnuts, blacks, and greys 

 is also the colour of the legs, excepting that in chestnuts and greys the legs 

 are usually darker than the body. Most bays and all browns have a lighter- 

 coloured patch at the nose — frequently sandy in tlie bay and tan in the brown 

 — but blacks are black right down to the muzzle. The tan muzzle is the 

 readiest means of distinguishing a very dark brown horse from a black. So 

 far as can be made out at present roan is the intrusion of white hairs through 

 a coat of any of the above-mentioned colours : the legs at the same time being 

 unaliected, or nearly so. That is to say : a bay roan has black legs, a chestnut 

 roan chestnut legs, and so on. 



In order to make the conclusious of this paper clear, we shall follow 

 the course of inquiry by which they were arrived at. 



SCLENT. PKOO. E.D.S., VOL. XU., NO. XXVUI. 3 H 



