EXPERIMENTAL 131 



the collar is able to reach. These two limits are shown side by 

 side in the figures. I should add that among the 411 which I term 

 abnormal, for the sake of clear contrast, the number of varieties 

 of pattern were numerous and bewildering. 



Cart Horses. 



A very significant result followed from a special examination 

 of 300 cart horses, as distinguished from hackneys. These showed 

 the astonishing number of 277 specimens of what I call the abnormal 

 and only 23 of the normal type. This special group in no way 

 weakens the force of the larger study of 748, for the 300 cart horses 

 are included in it, and, if removed, would have left the normal 

 specimens in the hackney or general group very much more numerous. 

 Looking at the cart horses, which are specimens of a highly -specia- 

 lised breed for heavy draught purposes, one may assert with some 

 confidence that, for them, the normal pattern of the hackney is 

 becoming their abnormal. It must be remembered that these great 

 creatures with large muscular necks are during most of their time 

 of work pulling hard against the collar, and the very conditions 

 required for making patterns of hair through pressure of harness 

 are present in a remarkable degree. It is indeed an undesigned 

 experiment within an experiment. 



Analogy. 



In addition to these statistics which may be taken as conclusive 

 on this question of the normal arrangement, I must point out that 

 it is against all reason, and analogy from all other mammals, to 

 doubt that the normal arrangement is as I describe it. No hair-clad 

 mammal either within the family of the Equida3, or without, has 

 any other arrangement on the under surface of its neck than what 

 is here shown to be the normal one — a uniform uninterrupted slope 

 from the head to the chest. There is also a feature of this greatly 

 variegated piece of the horse's coat under its neck, and that is 

 that it is so highly variegated with diversity of pattern as to make 

 it unlike any normal or natural structure or character in any animal. 

 That is not the way Nature does her normal work. It would be 

 impossible to give illustrations of many of the patterns here found, 

 though I have notes and sketches of a large number taken from the 

 examination of thousands of specimens ; so I have selected eight 

 (Figs. 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57 and 58) of the best representatives 

 of these and the details of each are given under each figure. 



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