Origin of Species Variorum

→ mouse duns; by 1869

mouse-duns; 1859 1860 1861 1866 1872

→ this view may be safely rejected; for it is highly improbable that 1869

I am not at all satisfied with this theory, and should be loth to apply it to breeds so distinct as 1859 1860 1861

I am not at all satisfied with this view, and should be loth to apply it to breeds so distinct as 1866

this view may be safely rejected, for it is highly improbable that 1872

→ world, should all have been crossed with one supposed aboriginal stock. 1869 1872

world. 1859 1860 1861 1866

disappear in old horses. Colonel Poole has seen both gray and bay Kattywar horses striped when first foaled. I

have,

have

also,

also

reason to suspect, from information given me by Mr. W. W. Edwards, that with the English

racehorse

race-horse

the spinal stripe is much commoner in the foal than in the full-grown animal. I have myself recently bred a foal from a bay mare (offspring of a

Turkoman

Turcoman

horse and a Flemish mare) by a bay English race-horse; this foal when a week old was marked on its hinder quarters and on its forehead with numerous, very narrow,

dark

dark,

zebra-like bars, and its legs were feebly striped: all the stripes soon disappeared completely. Without here entering on further details, I may state that I have collected cases of leg and shoulder stripes in horses of very different

breeds

breeds,

in various countries from Britain to Eastern China; and from Norway in the north to the Malay Archipelago in the south. In all parts of the world these stripes occur far oftenest in duns and →mouse duns; by

....

the term dun a large range of colour is included, from one between brown and black to a close approach to

cream colour.

cream-colour.

I am aware that Colonel Hamilton Smith, who has written on this subject, believes that the several breeds of the horse

have

are

descended from several aboriginal

species—

species —

one of which, the dun, was striped; and that the above-described appearances are all due to ancient crosses with the dun stock. But →this view may be safely rejected; for it is highly improbable that the heavy Belgian cart-horse,

Welsh

Welch

ponies,

Norwegian cobs,

cobs,

the lanky Kattywar

race,&c.,

race, &c.,

inhabiting the most distant parts of the →world, should all have been crossed with one supposed aboriginal stock.

Now let us turn to the effects of crossing the several species of the horse-genus. Rollin asserts, that the