| → Devonshire and Welch ponies, 1861 1866 1869 |
| Welch pony, 1859 1860 |
| Devonshire and Welsh ponies, 1872 |
|
| → chance, 1866 1869 1872 |
| an accident, 1859 1861 |
| an acci- dent, 1860 |
|
| →Devonshire and Welch ponies,
and even had some zebra-like stripes on the sides of its face. With respect to this last fact, I was so convinced that not even a stripe of colour appears from what
commonly
called
→chance,
that I was led solely from the occurrence of the face-stripes on this hybrid from the ass and
to ask Colonel Poole whether such face-stripes ever
in the eminently striped Kattywar breed of horses, and was, as we have seen, answered in the affirmative. |
|
| What now are we to say to these several facts? We see several
distinct species of the horse-genus becoming, by simple variation, striped on the legs like a zebra, or striped on the shoulders like an ass. In the horse we see this tendency strong whenever a dun tint
a tint which approaches to that of the general colouring of the other species of the genus. The appearance of the stripes is not accompanied by any change of form or by any other new character. We see this tendency to become striped most strongly displayed in hybrids from between several of the most distinct species. Now observe the case of the several breeds of pigeons: they are descended from a pigeon (including two or three sub-species or geographical races) of a bluish colour, with certain bars and other marks; and when any breed assumes by simple variation a bluish tint, these bars and other marks invariably reappear; but without any other change of form or character. When the oldest and truest breeds of various colours are crossed, we see a strong tendency for the blue tint and bars and marks to reappear in the mongrels. I have stated that the most probable hypothesis to account for the reappearance of very ancient characters,
that there is a
tendency
in the young of each successive generation to produce the long-lost character, and that
|
