2i6 SKIN, HAIR, AND COLOUR 



the East, where stable duties are not so onerous as m this 

 country. I may mention that grey horses appear to be more 

 liable to melanosis than animals of other colours Shire 

 horse fanciers do not like greys , for the majority of foreign 

 buyers object to them. Some of their best horses, as 

 What's Wanted and Rokeby Fuchsia, for instance, were of 

 this hue. For my own part, I am very fond of dark iron or 

 dappled grey with dark mane and tail. Among the cleverest 

 hunters I have seen, I must say that a comparatively large 

 proportion of them have been greys, a fact for which I can 

 offer no explanation, unless that of their havmg had 

 Chanticleer blood in their veins. In Leicestershire, moderate 

 performers, as a rule, are averse from riding out hunting a 

 grey horse, whose conspicuous colour is apt to draw attention 

 to sins of commission and omission m too marked a manner 

 to be always pleasant. Blue and red roans, and dun with 

 black points, are supposed to be *' hardy" colours. The most 

 showy colours for harness work are bright chestnut and red 

 roan with more chestnut than grey hairs, and free from white 

 patches. When there is a large admixture of white with the 

 red, the colour may be called strawberry roan, which is an 

 ugly hue, particularly if the animal that wears it has a blaze 

 and white stockings. Both piebald (black and white) and 

 skewbald (bay or chestnut and white) may be suggestive of 

 a circus, except in a team ; although as clever a hunter (Fig 

 320) as I have seen in Leicestershire was a skewbald. In 

 a hunter, both piebald and skewbald are even more con- 

 spicuous than grey The colours found among high-caste 

 Arab horses are practically limited to bay, brown, chestnut, 

 and grey. The same remark applies to our own thorough- 

 bred stock, except that we have a few roans, and a very 

 small proportion of greys chiefly through Chanticleer. The 

 general idea that chestnuts are more impetuous than horses 

 of other colours, is one which I do not think worthy of much 

 weight. 



Mr. T. C. Patteson, of Toronto, draws my attention to 

 the very interesting fact that the offspring of two chestnuts 



