94 STUDIES IN THE EVOLUTION OF ANIMALS 



are the marks I had long been searching for, under the conviction 

 that, if my theory were right, I would discover them somewhere. 

 They are rarely seen, because in the Horse the components of each 

 rosette have fused into a continuous maculation, like those of 

 Fig. 34. (3) Is a solitary rosette with its central space split into two 

 portions ; {c) is one of many similar rosettes on a Horse ; and {d) 

 were marks of a slightly different shade of colour from the general 

 coloration of the Horse. Those of {a) are almost exactly like my 

 restoration of the Jaguar rosettes of Fig. 70. 



I do not, of course, mean that the dappled Horse will ever turn 

 into a Zebra ; or the rosetted Jaguar into a Tiger. But I do think 

 it quite conceivable that the striping of the Tiger evolved out of 

 rosetting like that of the Jaguar ; and that both the Zebra and the 

 dappled Horse may have evolved out of an animal with spotting 

 not unlike that of the Jaguar. As to the relation of the Horse-dap- 

 pling to the Zebra-striping, it only requires that one should keep 

 his eyes open in the streets to see on the neck of dappled Horses, 

 especially of Ponies, a decided tendency to Zebra-striping, which is 

 often continued into the Horse's mane. 



As I said, all experts agree that the Horse is born self-coloured,^ 

 and whatever the cause may be, if this state of things continues, 

 the Horse will be a self-coloured animal ; otherwise he will be more 

 or less dappled. The variations and gradations in the appear- 

 ance and disappearance of spotting in animals are infinite. Some 

 acquire spots at different ages, others lose them at different ages. 

 Just as the embryo of the higher animals in evolving simulates 

 the different stages of form through which, in its race history, the 

 animal ascended, so the spotting and marking may give indication 

 of the ancestral markings through which that animal in its evolu- 

 tion may have passed. 



' Like the small Jaguar cub in the Natural History Museum — case 13. 



