TELEGONY AND EEVEESION. 145 



Mr. Wilfrid Blunt believes that the offspring of white 

 Arabs are apt to show stripes; while HerrAV. von Nathusius, 

 in a recent letter, indicates that he thinks there are latent 

 stripes in black horses. From what I have seen of black 

 horses when in the act of shedding their winter coat, I 

 think one may go further than Nathusius and say that 

 stripes sometimes actually exist in black or all but black 

 horses. Supposing there is no such thing as telegony, 

 and that white and black horses tend to produce striped 

 offspring, and, further, that when fairly distinct types are 

 crossed the offspring are likely to revert, what extent of 

 striping might be expected in the foal of a black Island 

 of Rum pony which has never bred with a zebra, and a 

 grey Arab horse ? 



Darwin tells us he " never heard of either shoulder or 

 leg stripes without the spinal stripe. The latter is by far 

 the commonest, as might have been expected as it charac- 

 terises the other seven or eight species of the genus."* 

 This has also been my experience, and, as far as I know, it 

 has been the experience of all who have directed their 

 attention to the subject. Hence Mulatto's second foal 

 (even if there is no such thing as telegony) might have a 

 dorsal band, shoulder and leg stripes, and a number of 

 not very distinct stripes on the face, neck, and body. 

 We still know too little of the plan of the stripes in the 

 ancestors of the horse to admit of their being compared 

 with the stripes in the zebras ; what has been ascertained, 

 however, points to the arrangement differing considerably. 

 The shoulder and leg stripes so common in the domestic 

 ass may be said to be transmitted almost unaltered to 

 zebra-ass hybrids. There is, however, no evidence that 

 any stripes are derived directly from the horse in zebra- 

 horse hybrids ; it looks as if the stripes of the ancestors of 

 Mulatto had been overcome or masked by stripes charac- 

 teristic of the ancestors of the zebras. 



The likelihood of strijDes in addition to shoulder and leg- 

 stripes and a dorsal band occurring in a foal bred from an 

 * 'Animals and Plants,' vol. i, p. 63. 



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