I tried to breed from the male quagga and a young chestnut mare of
seven-eighths Arabian blood, and which had never been bred from;
the result was the production of a female hybrid, now five years
old, and bearing, both in her form and in her colour, very decided
indications of her mixed origin. I subsequently parted with the
seven-eighths Arabian mare to Sir Gore Ouseley, who has bred from her
by a very fine black Arabian horse. I yesterday morning examined the
produce, namely, a two-year-old filly and a year-old colt. They have
the character of the Arabian breed as decidedly as can be expected,
where fifteen-sixteenths of the blood are Arabian; and they are fine
specimens of that breed; but both in their colour and in the hair of
their manes they have a striking resemblance to the quagga. Their
colour is bay, marked more or less like the quagga in a darker tint.
Both are distinguished by the dark line along the ridge of the back,
the dark stripes across the fore-hand, and the dark bars across the
back part of the legs[75].
Lord Morton then names sundry further correspondences. Dr. Wollaston,
at that time President of the Royal Society, who had seen the animals,
testified to the correctness of his description, and, as shown by his
remarks, entertained no doubt about the alleged facts. But good reason
for doubt may be assigned. There naturally arises the question—How
does it happen that parallel results are not observed in other cases?
If in any progeny certain traits not belonging to the sire, but
belonging to a sire of preceding progeny, are reproduced, how is it
that such anomalously-inherited traits are not observed in domestic
animals, and indeed in mankind? How is it that the children of a
widow by a second husband do not bear traceable resemblances of the
first husband? To these questions nothing like satisfactory replies
seem forthcoming; and, in the absence of replies, scepticism, if not
disbelief, may be held reasonable.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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