GENEEAL INTRODUCTION. JXXVU 



paper, are caused by the hair being arranged in well- 

 marked tracks or ridges, separated by almost hairless 

 spaces. In these tracks, which were very distinct at 

 birth in a cinnamon-coloured foal I bred this year, out of 

 a bay half- Arab mare — the sire was a chestnut thorough- 

 bred horse — we have, it may be, a restoration for a time 

 of an ancestral condition. Sometimes, along with these 

 hair-tracks or ridges, there are faint stripes seen only in 

 certain lights, but evidently iu part due to subtle colour- 

 ing. Stripes of this nature I noticed plentifully scattered 

 over a reddish-grey foal out of my flea-bitten New Forest 

 pony by the grey Arab, Benazrek. More common and 

 more evident are comparatively broad wavy bands, often 

 seen across the croup and on the brow of half-bred bay 

 foals. These bands may occupy the position of ancestral 

 stripes — stripes out of which the colour has been com- 

 pletely washed since they ceased to count in the struggle 

 for existence. My reason for supposing they represent 

 ancestral stripes is based on the fact that they occupy 

 the position of stripes in a yellow-dun Norwegian pony, 

 and of the stripes over the croup of one of Lady Meux's 

 hybrids, which may have been inherited either from the 

 American trotting horse or from a remote common an- 

 cestor. I am now satisfied that foals are far more often 

 marked with stripes — apparent or real — than is generally 

 supposed, and that stripes will be often seen in horses if 

 they are carefully looked for. From this it follows that 

 the stripes on the " colts " bred by Sir Gore Ouseley 

 out of Lord Morton's mare by the black Arab horse are, 

 after all, not so very remarkable. The zebra, Matopo, 

 having failed to " infect " four mares, it is quite evident 

 that telegony does not invariably occur, as many breeders 

 believe. It remains to be seen whether it occurs in even 

 1 or 2 per cent, of cases, as was supposed by Eomanes. 

 I have now eight mares that, if telegony is true, may 

 have been infected. I hope to continue breeding from 

 these mares and from their offspring for some years to 

 come, in order to give the supposed infection an oppor- 

 tunity of showing itself. If, out of fifty or a hundred of 



