THE EXTERNAL CONFORMATION OF THE HORSE. 
567 
manship, by Xenophon, translated by Morgan, page 108.) I 
cannot help thinking that the writer regarded the mane in the 
same light that we do the coat or hair covering the whole body, 
in which case it is evident that like many persons of to-day, his 
taste lan to solid colors, but he does not give any preference to 
shade. The primitive colors of the hair of the horse appear to 
be white, 7 'ed , black , and yellow , all other shades or mixtures 
being simply modifications of one or more of them. If we infil¬ 
trate a few atoms of yellow into the white hair we get a cream, 
which is represented in the equine race by quite a variety of 
shades, according to the proportions of white and yellow. 
If on the other hand we treat black and white in the same 
way, we get a dun color, which also has a variety of shades ; 
while red and yellow, with some white, seem to produce the 
various shades of chestnut or sorrel, and bay as well as brown 
are no doubt produced by a delicate mixture of the four primi¬ 
tive colois. In some animals only one color is apparent, while 
in others it seems to take all four to produce the exact shade. 
The amount of coloring matter supplied to each individual hair 
is arranged by nature in many different ways so as to produce 
very different results. For instance, we find rings of certain 
shades suriounding spaces of other shades producing a dappled 
appearance, which is often admired, as the dapple gray, dap¬ 
pled bay or dappled brown, etc., etc., though we do occasion¬ 
ally meet with horses where the dapple does not improve the 
appearance. In other individuals we find the different colored 
hairs ai ranged so as to produce numerous shades of gray caused 
in a somewhat interesting manner by the predominance of one 
coloi or another ; black and white producing iron gray ; red and 
white, roan gray, or yellow and white, Isabella gray ; the two 
latter with black hair produces roans of different shades, red roan 
01 yellow roan, as the case may be. These, like all other shades, 
become light or dark according to circumstances. 
We also meet with horses which are of two distinct colors, 
having sharp lines of demarkation between the one and the 
other. Indeed we have the different colored hairs arranged in 
