2 76 BRITISH MAMMALS 



early forms probably bore dark stripes on the limbs and perhaps 

 on the shoulder, and dapplings on the body. The true Con- 

 nemara ponies (which there is reason to think are descended 

 directly from the wild horse of Ireland), the modern Norway 

 ponies (also descendants of the Norwegian wild horse), and 

 Prjevalski's wild horse of Tibet in its summer coat (besides 

 also country-bred horses in India) frequently display two, three, 

 or more dark stripes on the fore limb between the wrist and 

 the elbow, and sometimes one dark stripe on the shoulder. They 

 nearly always have a longitudinal dark stripe all along the ridge 

 of the back, such as is seen in the asses. Many horses, feral and 

 domestic, show distinct light dapplings on the flanks and the hind 

 quarters.^ 



The theory of the present writer is that the original markings 

 of the Horse group were not (as imaginative artists are wont to 

 depict in restoring extinct types) zebra-like black stripes on a 

 pale ground, but, like the primeval markings in so many 

 mammals, white or pale spots and stripes on a dark ground. 

 Gradually the light-coloured spaces grew and grew, till they 

 coalesced in the lower parts of the body, making the belly and 

 the limbs uniformly light-coloured. The dark spaces that were 

 left grew darker in the case of the asses and zebras, until they 

 became brown or black stripes and spots. In reality the stripes 

 (on the legs of the wild ass, for example) are merely the remains 

 of the original dark colour of the fur, where nearly all the rest of 

 the body has been swamped in light colour, or where the alternate 

 light and dark markings have fused into a brown or ash-coloured 

 tint. 



It is not advantageous, as a rule, to wild animals to be 

 excessively white, so that when these white markings had spread 

 till they enveloped nearly the whole of the coat they tended to 

 become dun or cream-colour. In the horse the white markings 



1 These spots may be often quite clearly distinguished and drawn if 

 the horse is closely clipped. Seen in a favourable light, these dapplings 

 are like loops and spots between darkish spaces answering to the stripes 

 of the zebra. 



