DAPPLED AND STRIPED HORSES 65 



I would ask the reader to note particularly the rows of slanting 

 dapples on the flank of the upper Horse of Fig. 38. I have already 

 referred to similar slanting rows of rosettes in certain Leopard skins 

 (Fig. 15, a\ and shall have to refer to them again. 



No one, I think, will doubt that these spots in this Horse are 

 vestiges of the larger dapples, like those of Fig. 34. If a full-blown 

 dapple or rosette can be reduced to a mere point, as we see it in 

 certain Horses and other animals, it stands to reason that it can be 

 much modified otherwise. 



We do not know what atomic conditions of the nerve-centres 

 are requisite to produce this minute specking, but it is evident that 

 a more complete intermingling of the pigmented hairs with the 

 white ones would give rise to a roan or a strawberry roan. On the 

 other hand, when the pigments agglomerate in separate large 

 patches, we get the same piebald conditions seen in Cattle, Dogs, 

 Pigs, etc. 



I am not here going to enter into the intricate question of how 

 the dappling of the young Horse commences— whether by minute 

 spotting becoming larger, or by large patching dwindling eventually 

 into minute spotting. It is a difficult question to unravel, and 

 there does not seem to be any accurate information on this point. 

 As to how the dappled Horse originally came into being at all, there 

 would not seem at first any means of finding out. Fossils in no 

 way record the coloration and markings of the skins of extinct 

 animals. Nevertheless, I hope to throw some light on this point of 

 evolution later on. The existing wild congeners of the Horse are 

 either striped, like the Zebra, or self-coloured, like the Kiang or wild 

 Ass. The coloration of the latter is a sort of tan or fawn colour, 

 while in the domestic Ass mouse-grey is a common colour. 



The person who originally invented the names for the colours of 

 Horses must have been colour-blind, for how could he have called 



E 



