200 DISTINCT SPECIES PRESENT [Chap. V. 



as purely-bred. The spine is always striped; the legs 

 are generally barred; and the shoulder-stripe, which is 

 sometimes double and sometimes treble, is common; 

 the side of the face, moreover, is sometimes striped. 

 The stripes are often plainest in the foal; and some- 

 times quite disappear in old horses. Colonel Poole has 

 seen both gray and bay Kattywar horses striped when 

 first foaled. I have also reason to suspect, from infor- 

 mation given me by Mr. W. W. Edwards, that with the 

 English race-horse the spinal stripe is much commoner 

 in the foal than in the full-grown animal. I have my- 

 self recently bred a foal from a bay mare (offspring of a 

 Turkoman horse and a Flemish mare) by a bay English 

 race-horse; this foal when a week old was marked on its 

 hinder quarters and on its forehead with numerous, very 

 narrow, dark, zebra-like bars, and its legs were feebly 

 striped: all the stripes soon disappeared completely. 

 Without here entering on further details, I may state 

 that I have collected cases of leg and shoulder stripes 

 in horses of very different breeds in various countries 

 from Britain to Eastern China; and from Norway in 

 the north to the Malay Archipelago in the south. In 

 all parts of the world these stripes occur far oftenest in 

 duns and mouse-duns; by the term dun a large range of 

 colour is included, from one between brown and black 

 to a close approach to cream-colour. 



I am aware that Colonel Hamilton Smith, who has 

 written on this subject, believes that the several breeds 

 of the horse are descended from several aboriginal spe- 

 cies — one of which, the dun, was striped; and that the 

 above-described appearances are all due to ancient 

 crosses with the dun stock. But this view may be 

 safely rejected; for it is highly improbable that the 



