124 TKLEGONY AND KETEKSION. 



a 



cquired sinco the ancestral stripes were all but lost. 

 When dappling co-exists with more or less distinct stripes 

 it is at once evident from the relation of the dappling to the 

 stripes that the one has not been derived from the other. 

 The pigment which formerly produced stripes (now no 

 longer counting in the struggle for existence, and hence 

 neglected) has in recent times been as it were left uncon- 

 trolled, with the result that it frequently gives rise to ever- 

 varying and quite meaningless dappling, or to large equally 

 meaningless blotches. 



"We look upon the spots on the young lion as ancestral 

 relics, as indicating that lions (which are now in their 

 colouring best adapted for a life in the desert or the open 

 veldt) were at one time adapted for a jungle or forest life. 

 In the same way, from the spots which frequently appear 

 in j'ouug pigs and afterwards unite to form bands, we 

 argue that the remote ancestors of the pigs were spotted, 

 while the less remote ancestors were characterised by 

 longitudinal bands. There are various cogent reasons for 

 believing that stripes were in man_y cases preceded Ijy 

 spots, and we know that animals frequently during develop- 

 ment and growth repeat more or less accurately certain 

 phases of their ancestral history. The fact that the spots 

 over the hind quarters of Komulus have, since his birth, 

 to a considerable extent blended to form stripes, which 

 almost agree line for line and citrve for curve with the 

 croup and rump stripes in the Somali zebra, seems to me 

 to be "jnljr capable of one explanation. In tlie sjiots we 

 have restored by what we term reversion or atavism a lost 

 stage in the evolution of the stripes over the hind quarters 

 in the Equidas ; and by the gradual blending of the 

 majority of these spots during the first year of the hybrid's 

 existence, we have had a practical demonstration of how 

 some of the stripes on the Equidas were originallv formed. 



If the difference between the markings in Komulus and 

 his sire are not due to reversion — to the restoration in a 

 modified form of one of the phases through which, it may 

 be, both horses and zebras passed during their evolution 



