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RKVIKW — THK NATURALIST’S LIBRARY. 
explained. In some experiments that were made by the Earl of 
Morton, and recorded in the Philosophical Transactions for the Year 
1821, it is stated that he had bred a hybrid foal between a 
chestnut mare -J Arabian blood and a quagga, which in form and 
colour bore decided evidence of a mixed origin. This was her 
first foal; but interest was most excited five years afterwards, 
when the mare being sold to Sir Gore Ousely, he bred from her, 
by a black Arabian horse, a filly, and the next year a colt, by 
the same parent ; which, although both were unquestionably ^§ths 
of pure Arabian blood, shewed strong marks of the anterior spu- 
rious commixture of the mare and quagga, in the character of 
the mane, the colour of the hair, and in the striped markings 
on the neck, shoulders, and joints. These facts were fully cor- 
roborated by the late Dr. Wollaston, and, it appears, likewise 
by Col. H. Smith himself. Portraits of the animals painted by 
the accurate Agasse are preserved in the Museum of Surgeons’ 
College, London ; and our author also has represented the first, 
second, and third produce of the mare and black Arabian in three 
well-executed engravings. In the last foal, the mane retains its 
quagga character as much as the first, and, in all, the streaks on the 
neck and back are more decided than even in the mule. Our 
readers may draw their own conclusions from this. We merely 
ask, hypothetically, whether the Isabella breed of horses might not 
have been originally produced in some such manner 1 If so, the 
fusibility of hybrid blood in this instance is out of the question. 
We are, however, inclined to believe that the primitive breed of 
horses were of the dun or cream colour, and, if so, then both argu- 
ments fall to the ground. Such was the Median race, best known 
by the name of Nisean*; because, in the plain about Mount Corone, 
there was, in the time of Darius, an enormous hippobaton belong- 
ing to the government, whence the ill-fated monarch drew one 
hundred thousand horses to oppose the Macedonian invasion, and 
still left fifty thousand in the pastures, which Alexander saw in 
his march through that country. They were all, it appears, of a 
dun or cream colour, and were derived from the wild race further 
north, which is still of a similar colour, with an asinine streak 
down the back, cross bars on the joints and even on the shoulders; 
the muzzle, mane, tail, and pastern being black. Wild horses, by 
* Xerxes, in the Grecian expedition, was drawn in a chariot by Nisaean 
horses. Strabo also takes notice of them : he says, that they were used 
chiefly by kings, being the best and largest breed. 
The colour he also mentions as being of a dun or golden colour. 
Etvxi yQa$ iruuot;. 
