HORSES AND ASSES.
HORSE.--DIFFERENCES IN THE BREEDS--INDIVIDUAL VARIABILITY OF--DIRECT
EFFECTS OF THE CONDITIONS OF LIFE--CAN WITHSTAND MUCH COLD--BREEDS MUCH
MODIFIED BY SELECTION--COLOURS OF THE HORSE--DAPPLING--DARK STRIPES ON
THE SPINE, LEGS, SHOULDERS, AND FOREHEAD--DUN-COLOURED HORSES MOST
FREQUENTLY STRIPED--STRIPES PROBABLY DUE TO REVERSION TO THE PRIMITIVE
STATE OF THE HORSE.
ASSES.--BREEDS OF--COLOUR OF--LEG- AND SHOULDER-
STRIPES--SHOULDER-STRIPES SOMETIMES ABSENT, SOMETIMES FORKED.
The history of the Horse is lost in antiquity. Remains of this animal in a
domesticated condition have been found in the Swiss lake-dwellings,
belonging to the latter part of the Stone period.[100] At the present time
the number of breeds is great, as may be seen by consulting any treatise on
the Horse.[101] Looking only to the native ponies of Great Britain, those
of the Shetland Isles, Wales, the New Forest, and Devonshire are
distinguishable; and so it is with each separate island in the great Malay
archipelago.[102] Some of the breeds present great differences in size,
shape of ears, length of mane, proportions of the body, form of the withers
and hind quarters, and especially in the head. Compare the race-horse,
dray-horse, and a Shetland pony in size, configuration, and disposition;
and see how much greater the difference is than between the six or seven
other living species of the genus Equus.
{50}
Of individual variations not known to characterise particular breeds, and
not great or injurious enough to be called monstrosities, I have not
collected many cases. Mr. G. Brown, of the Cirencester Agricultural
College, who has particularly attended to the dentition of our domestic
animals, writes to me that he has "several times noticed eight permanent
incisors instead of six in the jaw." Male horses alone properly have
canines, but they are occasionally found in the mare, though of small
size.[103] The number of ribs is properly eighteen, but Youatt[104] asserts
that not unfrequently there are nineteen on each side, the additional one
being always the posterior rib. I have seen several notices of variations
in the bones of the leg; thus Mr. Price[105] speaks of an additional bone
in the hock, and of certain abnormal appearances between the tibia and
astragalus, as quite common in Irish horses, and not due to disease. Horses
have often been observed, according to M. Gaudry,[106] to possess a
trapezium and a rudiment of a fifth metacarpal bone, so that "one sees
appearing by monstrosity, in the foot of the horse, structures which
normally exist in the foot of the Hipparion,"--an allied and extinct
animal. In various countries horn-like projections have been observed on
the frontal bones of the horse: in one case described by Mr. Percival they
arose about two inches above the orbital processes, and were "very like
those in a calf from five to six months old," being from half to
three-quarters of an inch in length.[107] Azara has described two cases in
South America in which the projections were between three and four inches
in length: other instances have occurred in Spain.
That there has been much inherited variation in the horse cannot be
doubted, when we reflect on the number of the breeds existing throughout
the world or even within the same country, and when we know that they have
largely increased in number {51} since the earliest known records.[108]
Even in so fleeting a character as colour, Hofacker[109] found that, out of
two hundred and sixteen cases in which horses of the same colour were
paired, only eleven pairs produced foals of a quite different colour. As
Professor Low[110] has remarked, the English race-horse offers the best
possible evidence of inheritance. The pedigree of a race-horse is of more
value in judging of its probable success than its appearance: "King Herod"
gained in prizes 201,505l. sterling, and begot 497 winners; "Eclipse" begot
334 winners.
Whether the whole amount of difference between the various breeds be due to
variation is doubtful. From the fertility of the most distinct breeds[111]
when crossed, naturalists have generally looked at all the breeds as having
descended from a single species. Few will agree with Colonel H. Smith, who
believes that they have descended from no less than five primitive and
differently coloured stocks.[112] But as several species and varieties of
the horse existed[113] during the later tertiary periods, and as Ruetimeyer
found differences in the size and form of the skull in the earliest known
domesticated horses,[114] we ought not to feel sure that all our breeds
have descended from a single species. As we see that the savages of North
and South America easily reclaim the feral horses, there is no
improbability in savages in various quarters of the world having
domesticated more than one native species or natural race. No aboriginal or
truly wild horse is positively known now to exist; for it is thought by
some authors that the wild horses of the East are escaped domestic
animals.[115] If our domestic breeds have descended from several {52}
species or natural races, these apparently have all become extinct in the
wild state. With our present knowledge, the common view that all have
descended from a single species is, perhaps, the most probable.
With respect to the causes of the modifications which horses have
undergone, the conditions of life seem to produce a considerable direct
effect. Mr. D. Forbes, who has had excellent opportunities of comparing the
horses of Spain with those of South America, informs me that the horses of
Chile, which have lived under nearly the same conditions as their
progenitors in Andalusia, remain unaltered, whilst the Pampas horses and
the Puno ponies are considerably modified. There can be no doubt that
horses become greatly reduced in size and altered in appearance by living
on mountains and islands; and this apparently is due to want of nutritious
or varied food. Every one knows how small and rugged the ponies are on the
Northern islands and on the mountains of Europe. Corsica and Sardinia have
their native ponies; and there were,[116] or still are, on some islands on
the coast of Virginia, ponies like those of the Shetland Islands, which are
believed to have originated through exposure to unfavourable conditions.
The Puno ponies, which inhabit the lofty regions of the Cordillera, are, as
I hear from Mr. D. Forbes, strange little creatures, very unlike their
Spanish progenitors. Further south, in the Falkland Islands, the offspring
of the horses imported in 1764 have already so much deteriorated in
size[117] and strength that they are unfitted for catching wild cattle with
the lasso; so that fresh horses have to be brought for this purpose from La
Plata at a great expense. The reduced size of the horses bred on both
southern and northern islands, and on several mountain-chains, can hardly
have been caused by the cold, as a similar reduction has occurred on the
Virginian and Mediterranean islands. The horse can withstand intense cold,
for wild troops live on the plains of Siberia under lat. 56 deg.,[118] and
aboriginally the horse must {53} have inhabited countries annually covered
with snow, for he long retains the instinct of scraping it away to get at
the herbage beneath. The wild tarpans in the East have this instinct; and,
as I am informed by Admiral Sulivan, this is likewise the case with the
horses which have run wild on the Falkland Islands; now this is the more
remarkable as the progenitors of these horses could not have followed this
instinct during many generations in La Plata: the wild cattle of the
Falklands never scrape away the snow, and perish when the ground is long
covered. In the northern parts of America the horses, descended from those
introduced by the Spanish conquerors of Mexico, have the same habit, as
have the native bisons, but not so the cattle introduced from Europe.[119]
The horse can flourish under intense heat as well as under intense cold,
for he is known to come to the highest perfection, though not attaining a
large size, in Arabia and northern Africa. Much humidity is apparently more
injurious to the horse than heat or cold. In the Falkland Islands, horses
suffer much from the dampness; and this same circumstance may perhaps
partly account for the singular fact that to the eastward of the Bay of
Bengal,[120] over an enormous and humid area, in Ava, Pegu, Siam, the
Malayan archipelago, the Loo Choo Islands, and a large part of China, no
full-sized horse is found. When we advance as far eastward as Japan, the
horse reacquires his full size.[121]
With most of our domesticated animals, some breeds are kept on account of
their curiosity or beauty; but the horse is valued almost solely for its
utility. Hence semi-monstrous breeds are not preserved; and probably all
the existing breeds have been slowly formed either by the direct action of
the conditions of life, or through the selection of individual differences.
No doubt semi-monstrous breeds might have been formed: thus Mr. Waterton
records[122] the case of a mare which produced {54} successively three
foals without tails; so that a tailless race might have been formed like
the tailless races of dogs and cats. A Russian breed of horses is said to
have frizzled hair, and Azara[123] relates that in Paraguay horses are
occasionally born, but are generally destroyed, with hair like that on the
head of a negro; and this peculiarity is transmitted even to half-breeds:
it is a curious case of correlation that such horses have short manes and
tails, and their hoofs are of a peculiar shape like those of a mule.
It is scarcely possible to doubt that the long-continued selection of
qualities serviceable to man has been the chief agent in the formation of
the several breeds of the horse. Look at a dray-horse, and see how well
adapted he is to draw heavy weights, and how unlike in appearance to any
allied wild animal. The English race-horse is known to have proceeded from
the commingled blood of Arabs, Turks, and Barbs; but selection and training
have together made him a very different animal from his parent-stocks. As a
writer in India, who evidently knows the pure Arab well, asks, who now,
"looking at our present breed of race-horses, could have conceived that
they were the result of the union of the Arab horse and African mare?" The
improvement is so marked that in running for the Goodwood Cup "the first
descendants of Arabian, Turkish, and Persian horses, are allowed a discount
of 18 lbs. weight; and when both parents are of these countries a discount
of 36 lbs."[124] It is notorious that the Arabs have long been as careful
about the pedigree of their horses as we are, and this implies great and
continued care in breeding. Seeing what has been done in England by careful
breeding, can we doubt that the Arabs must likewise have produced during
the course of centuries a marked effect on the qualities of their horses?
But we may go much farther back in time, for in the most ancient known
book, the Bible, we hear of studs carefully kept for breeding, {55} and of
horses imported at high prices from various countries.[125] We may
therefore conclude that, whether or not the various existing breeds of the
horse have proceeded from one or more aboriginal stocks, yet that a great
amount of change has resulted from the direct action of the conditions of
life, and probably a still greater amount from the long-continued selection
by man of slight individual differences.
With several domesticated quadrupeds and birds, certain coloured marks are
either strongly inherited or tend to reappear after having long been lost.
As this subject will hereafter be seen to be of importance, I will give a
full account of the colouring of horses. All English breeds, however unlike
in size and appearance, and several of those in India and the Malay
archipelago, present a similar range and diversity of colour. The English
race-horse, however, is said[126] never to be dun-coloured; but as dun and
cream-coloured horses are considered by the Arabs as worthless, "and fit
only for Jews to ride,"[127] these tints may have been removed by
long-continued selection. Horses of every colour, and of such widely
different kinds as dray-horses, cobs, and ponies, are all occasionally
dappled,[128] in the same manner as is so conspicuous with grey horses.
This fact does not throw any clear light on the colouring of the aboriginal
horse, but is a case of analogous variation, for even asses are sometimes
dappled, and I have seen, in the British Museum, a hybrid from the ass and
zebra dappled on its hinder quarters. By the expression analogous variation
(and it is one that I shall often have occasion to use) I mean a variation
occurring in a species or variety which resembles a normal character in
another and distinct species or variety. Analogous variations may arise, as
will be explained in a future chapter, {56} from two or more forms with a
similar constitution having been exposed to similar conditions,--or from
one of two forms having reacquired through reversion a character inherited
by the other form from their common progenitor,--or from both forms having
reverted to the same ancestral character. We shall immediately see that
horses occasionally exhibit a tendency to become striped over a large part
of their bodies; and as we know that stripes readily pass into spots and
cloudy marks in the varieties of the domestic cat and in several feline
species--even the cubs of the uniformly-coloured lion being spotted with
dark marks on a lighter ground--we may suspect that the dappling of the
horse, which has been noticed by some authors with surprise, is a
modification or vestige of a tendency to become striped.
[Illustration: Fig. 1.--Dun Devonshire Pony, with shoulder, spinal, and leg
stripes.]
This tendency in the horse to become striped is in several respects an
interesting feet. Horses of all colours, of the most diverse breeds, in
various parts of the world, often have a dark stripe extending along
the spine, from the mane to the tail; but this is so common that I need
enter into no particulars.[129] Occasionally horses are transversely
barred on the legs, chiefly on the under side; and more rarely they
have a distinct stripe on the shoulder, like that on the shoulder of
the ass, or a broad dark patch representing a stripe. Before entering
on any details I must premise that {57} the term dun-coloured is vague,
and includes three groups of colour, viz. that between cream-colour and
reddish-brown, which graduates into light-bay or light-chesnut--this, I
believe, is often called fallow-dun; secondly, leaden or slate-colour
or mouse-dun, which graduates into an ash-colour; and, lastly,
dark-dun, between brown and black. In England I have examined a rather
large, lightly-built, fallow-dun Devonshire pony (fig. 1), with a
conspicuous stripe along the back, with light transverse stripes on the
under sides of its front legs, and with four parallel stripes on each
shoulder. Of these four stripes the posterior one was very minute and
faint; the anterior one, on the other hand, was long and broad, but
interrupted in the middle, and truncated at its lower extremity, with
the anterior angle produced into a long tapering point. I mention this
latter fact because the shoulder-stripe of the ass occasionally
presents exactly the same appearance. I have had an outline and
description sent to me of a small, purely-bred, light fallow-dun Welch
pony, with a spinal stripe, a single transverse stripe on each leg, and
three shoulder-stripes; the posterior stripe corresponding with that on
the shoulder of the ass was the longest, whilst the two anterior
parallel stripes, arising from the mane, decreased in length, in a
reversed manner as compared with the shoulder-stripes on the
above-described Devonshire pony. I have seen a bright fallow-dun,
strong cob, with its front legs transversely barred on the under sides
in the most conspicuous manner; also a dark-leaden mouse-coloured pony
with similar leg stripes, but much less conspicuous; also a bright
fallow-dun colt, fully three-parts thoroughbred, with very plain
transverse stripes on the legs; also a chesnut-dun cart-horse with a
conspicuous spinal stripe, with distinct traces of shoulder-stripes,
but none on the legs; I could add other cases. My son made a sketch for
me of a large, heavy, Belgian cart-horse, of a fallow-dun, with a
conspicuous spinal stripe, traces of leg-stripes, and with two parallel
(three inches apart) stripes about seven or eight inches in length on
both shoulders. I have seen another rather light cart-horse, of a dirty
dark cream-colour, with striped legs, and on one shoulder a large
ill-defined dark cloudy patch, and on the opposite shoulder two
parallel faint stripes. All the cases yet mentioned are duns of various
tints; but Mr. W. W. Edwards has seen a nearly thoroughbred chesnut
horse which had the spinal stripe, and distinct bars on the legs; and I
have seen two bay carriage-horses with black spinal stripes; one of
these horses had on each shoulder a light shoulder-stripe, and the
other had a broad black ill-defined stripe, running obliquely half-way
down each shoulder; neither had leg-stripes.
The most interesting case which I have met with occurred in a colt of
my own breeding. A bay mare (descended from a dark-brown Flemish mare
by a light grey Turcoman horse) was put to Hercules, a thoroughbred
dark bay, whose sire (Kingston) and dam were both bays. The colt
ultimately turned out brown; but when only a fortnight old it was a
dirty bay, shaded with mouse-grey, and in parts with a yellowish tint:
it had only a trace of the spinal stripe, with a few obscure transverse
bars on the legs; but almost the whole body was marked with very narrow
dark stripes, in most parts so obscure as to be visible only in certain
lights, like the {58} stripes which may be seen on black kittens. These
stripes were distinct on the hind-quarters, where they diverged from
the spine, and pointed a little forwards; many of them as they diverged
from the spine became a little branched, exactly in the same manner as
in some zebrine species. The stripes were plainest on the forehead
between the ears, where they formed a set of pointed arches, one under
the other, decreasing in size downwards towards the muzzle; exactly
similar marks may be seen on the forehead of the quagga and Burchell's
zebra. When this foal was two or three months old all the stripes
entirely disappeared. I have seen similar marks on the forehead of a
fully grown, fallow-dun, cob-like horse, having a conspicuous spinal
stripe, and with its front legs well barred.
In Norway the colour of the native horse or pony is dun, varying from
almost cream-colour to dark mouse-dun; and an animal is not considered
purely bred unless it has the spinal and leg stripes.[130] In one part
of the country my son estimated that about a third of the ponies had
striped legs; he counted seven stripes on the fore-legs and two on the
hind-legs of one pony; only a few of them exhibited traces of
shoulder-stripes; but I have heard of a cob imported from Norway which
had the shoulder as well as the other stripes well developed. Colonel
Ham. Smith[131] alludes to dun-horses with the spinal stripe in the
Sierras of Spain; and the horses originally derived from Spain, in some
parts of South America, are now duns. Sir W. Elliot informs me that he
inspected a herd of 300 South American horses imported into Madras, and
many of these had transverse stripes on the legs and short
shoulder-stripes; the most strongly marked individual, of which a
coloured drawing was sent me, was a mouse-dun, with the
shoulder-stripes slightly forked.
In the North-Western parts of India striped horses of more than one
breed are apparently commoner than in any other part of the world; and
I have received information respecting them from several officers,
especially from Colonel Poole, Colonel Curtis, Major Campbell,
Brigadier St. John, and others. The Kattywar horses are often fifteen
or sixteen hands in height, and are well but lightly built. They are of
all colours, but the several kinds of duns prevail; and these are so
generally striped, that a horse without stripes is not considered pure.
Colonel Poole believes that all the duns have the spinal stripe, the
leg-stripes are generally present, and he thinks that about half the
horses have the shoulder-stripe; this stripe is sometimes double or
treble on both shoulders. Colonel Poole has often seen stripes on the
cheeks and sides of the nose. He has seen stripes on the grey and bay
Kattywars when first foaled, but they soon faded away. I have received
other accounts of cream-coloured, bay, brown, and grey Kattywar horses
being striped. Eastward of India, the Shan (north of Burmah) ponies, as
I am informed by Mr. Blyth, have spinal, leg, and shoulder stripes. Sir
W. Elliot informs me that he saw two bay Pegu ponies with {59}
leg-stripes. Burmese and Javanese ponies are frequently dun-coloured,
and have the three kinds of stripes, "in the same degree as in
England."[132] Mr. Swinhoe informs me that he examined two light-dun
ponies of two Chinese breeds, viz. those of Shangai and Amoy; both had
the spinal stripe, and the latter an indistinct shoulder-stripe.
We thus see that in all parts of the world breeds of the horse as
different as possible, when of a dun-colour (including under this term
a wide range of tint from cream to dusky black), and rarely when of
bay, grey, and chesnut shades, have the several above-specified
stripes. Horses which are of a yellow colour with white mane and tail,
and which are sometimes called duns, I have never seen with
stripes.[133]
From reasons which will be apparent in the chapter on Reversion, I have
endeavoured, but with poor success, to discover whether duns, which are
so much oftener striped than other coloured horses, are ever produced
from the crossing of two horses, neither of which are duns. Most
persons to whom I have applied believe that one parent must be a dun;
and it is generally asserted, that, when this is the case, the
dun-colour and the stripes are strongly inherited.[134] One case has
fallen under my own observation of a foal from a black mare by a bay
horse, which when fully grown was a dark fallow-dun and had a narrow
but plain spinal stripe. Hofacker[135] gives two instances of
mouse-duns (Mausrapp) being produced from two parents of different
colours and neither duns.
I have also endeavoured with little success to find out whether the
stripes are generally plainer or less plain in the foal than in the
adult horse. Colonel Poole informs me that, as he believes, "the
stripes are plainest when the colt is first foaled; they then become
less and less distinct till after the first coat is shed, when they
come out as strongly as before; but certainly often fade away as the
age of the horse increases." Two other accounts confirm this fading of
the stripes in old horses in India. One writer, on the other hand,
states that colts are often born without stripes, but that they appear
as the colt grows older. Three authorities affirm that in Norway the
stripes are less plain in the foal than in the adult. Perhaps there is
no fixed rule. In the case described by me of the young foal which was
narrowly striped over nearly all its body, there was no doubt about the
the early and complete disappearance of the stripes. Mr. W. W. Edwards
examined for me twenty-two foals of race-horses, and twelve had the
spinal stripe more or less plain; this fact, and some other accounts
which I have received, lead me to believe that the spinal stripe often
disappears in the English race-horse when old. On the whole I infer
that the stripes are generally plainest in the foal, and tend to
disappear in old age.
The stripes are variable in colour, but are always darker than the rest of
the body. They do not by any means always {60} coexist on the different
parts of the body: the legs may be striped without any shoulder-stripe, or
the converse case, which is rarer, may occur; but I have never heard of
either shoulder or leg-stripes without the spinal stripe. The latter is by
far the commonest of all the stripes, as might have been expected, as it
characterises the other seven or eight species of the genus. It is
remarkable that so trifling a character as the shoulder-stripe being double
or triple should occur in such different breeds as Welch and Devonshire
ponies, the Shan pony, heavy cart-horses, light South American horses, and
the lanky Kattywar breed. Colonel Hamilton Smith believes that one of his
five supposed primitive stocks was dun-coloured and striped; and that the
stripes in all the other breeds result from ancient crosses with this one
primitive dun; but it is extremely improbable that different breeds living
in such distant quarters of the world should all have been crossed with any
one aboriginally distinct stock. Nor have we any reason to believe that the
effects of a cross at a very remote period could be propagated for so many
generations as is implied on this view.
With respect to the primitive colour of the horse having been dun, Colonel
Hamilton Smith[136] has collected a large body of evidence showing that
this tint was common in the East as far back as the time of Alexander, and
that the wild horses of Western Asia and Eastern Europe now are, or
recently were, of various shades of dun. It seems that not very long ago a
wild breed of dun-coloured horses with a spinal stripe was preserved in the
royal parks in Prussia. I hear from Hungary that the inhabitants of that
country look at the duns with a spinal stripe as the aboriginal stock, and
so it is in Norway. Dun-coloured ponies are not rare in the mountainous
parts of Devonshire, Wales, and Scotland, where the aboriginal breed would
have had the best chance of being preserved. In South America in the time
of Azara, when the horse had been feral for about 250 years, 90 out of 100
horses were "bai-chatains," and the remaining ten were "zains," and not
more than one in 2000 {61} black. Zain is generally translated as dark
without any white; but as Azara speaks of mules being "zain-clair," I
suspect that zain must have meant dun-coloured. In some parts of the world
feral horses show a strong tendency to become roans.[137]
In the following chapters on the Pigeon we shall see that in pure breeds of
various colours, when a blue bird is occasionally produced, certain black
marks invariably appear on the wings and tail; so again, when variously
coloured breeds are crossed, blue birds with the same black marks are
frequently produced. We shall further see that these facts are explained
by, and afford strong evidence in favour of, the view that all the breeds
are descended from the rock-pigeon, or _Columba livia_, which is thus
coloured and marked. But the appearance of the stripes on the various
breeds of the horse, when of a dun-colour, does not afford nearly such good
evidence of their descent from a single primitive stock as in the case of
the pigeon; because no certainly wild horse is known as a standard of
comparison; because the stripes when they do appear are variable in
character; because there is far from sufficient evidence of the appearance
of the stripes from the crossing of distinct breeds; and lastly, because
all the species of the genus Equus have the spinal stripe, and several have
shoulder and leg stripes. Nevertheless the similarity in the most distinct
breeds in their general range of colour, in their dappling, and in the
occasional appearance, especially in duns, of leg-stripes and of double or
triple shoulder-stripes, taken together, indicate the probability of the
descent of all the existing races from a single, dun-coloured, more or less
striped, primitive stock, to which our horses still occasionally revert.
{62}
THE ASS.
Four species of Asses, besides three of zebras, have been described by
naturalists; but there can now be little doubt that our domesticated animal
is descended from one alone, namely, the _Asinus taeniopus_ of
Abyssinia.[138] The ass is sometimes advanced as an instance of an animal
domesticated, as we know by the Old Testament, from an ancient period,
which has varied only in a very slight degree. But this is by no means
strictly true; for in Syria alone there are four breeds;[139] first, a
light and graceful animal, with an agreeable gait, used by ladies;
secondly, an Arab breed reserved exclusively for the saddle; thirdly, a
stouter animal used for ploughing and various purposes; and lastly, the
large Damascus breed, with a peculiarly long body and ears. In this
country, and generally in Central Europe, though the ass is by no means
uniform in appearance, it has not given rise to distinct breeds like those
of the horse. This may probably be accounted for by the animal being kept
chiefly by poor persons, who do not rear large numbers, nor carefully match
and select the young. For, as we shall see in a future chapter, the ass can
with ease be greatly improved in size and strength by careful selection,
combined no doubt with good food; and we may infer that all its other
characters would be equally amenable to selection. The small size of the
ass in England and Northern Europe is apparently due far more to want of
care in breeding than to cold; for in Western India, where the ass is used
as a beast of burden by some of the lower castes, it is not much larger
than a Newfoundland dog, "being generally not more than from twenty to
thirty inches high."[140]
The ass varies greatly in colour; and its legs, especially the fore-legs,
both in England and other countries--for instance, in China--are
occasionally barred transversely more plainly than those of dun-coloured
horses. With the horse the occasional appearance of leg-stripes was
accounted for, through the principle of reversion, by the supposition that
the primitive horse was {63} thus striped; with the ass we may confidently
advance this explanation, for the parent-form, the _A. taeniopus_, is known
to be barred, though only in a slight degree, across the legs. The stripes
are believed to occur most frequently and to be plainest on the legs of the
domestic ass during early youth,[141] as is apparently likewise the case
with the horse. The shoulder-stripe, which is so eminently characteristic
of the species, is nevertheless variable in breadth, length, and manner of
termination. I have measured a shoulder-stripe four times as broad as
another; and some more than twice as long as others. In one light-grey ass
the shoulder-stripe was only six inches in length, and as thin as a piece
of string; and in another animal of the same colour there was only a dusky
shade representing a stripe. I have heard of three white asses, not
albinoes, with no trace of shoulder or spinal stripes;[142] and I have seen
nine other asses with no shoulder-stripe, and some of them had no spinal
stripe. Three of the nine were light-greys, one a dark-grey, another grey
passing into reddish-roan, and the others were brown, two being tinted on
parts of their bodies with a reddish or bay shade. Hence we may conclude
that, if grey and reddish-brown asses had been steadily selected and bred
from, the shoulder-stripe would have been almost as generally and as
completely lost as in the case of the horse.
The shoulder-stripe on the ass is sometimes double, and Mr. Blyth has seen
even three or four parallel stripes.[143] I have observed in ten cases
shoulder-stripes abruptly truncated at the lower end, with the anterior
angle produced into a tapering point, precisely as has been figured in the
dun Devonshire pony. I have seen three cases of the terminal portion
abruptly and angularly bent; and two cases of a distinct though slight
forking. In Syria, Dr. Hooker and his party observed for me no less than
five instances of the shoulder-stripe being plainly forked over the fore
leg. In the common mule it is likewise sometimes forked. When I first
noticed the forking and angular bending of the shoulder-stripe, I had seen
enough of the stripes {64} in the various equine species to feel convinced
that even a character so unimportant as this had a distinct meaning, and
was thus led to attend to the subject. I now find that in the _Asinus
Burchellii_ and _quagga_, the stripe which corresponds with the
shoulder-stripe of the ass, as well as some of the stripes on the neck,
bifurcate, and that some of those near the shoulder have their extremities
angularly bent backwards. The forking and angular bending of the stripes on
the shoulders apparently stand in relation with the changed direction of
the nearly upright stripes on the sides of the body and neck to the
transverse bars on the legs. Finally we see that the presence of shoulder,
leg, and spinal stripes in the horse,--their occasional absence in the
ass,--the occurrence of double and triple shoulder-stripes in both animals,
and the similar manner in which these stripes terminate at their lower
extremities,--are all cases of analogous variation in the horse and ass.
These cases are probably not due to similar conditions acting on similar
constitutions, but to a partial reversion in colour to the common
progenitor of these two species, as well as of the other species of the
genus. We shall hereafter have to return to this subject, and discuss it
more fully.
* * * * *
{65}