The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection: Or, the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life, 6th EditionDarwin, Charles
History
The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection: Or, the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life, 6th Edition
Darwin, Charles
Evolution (Biology); Natural selection
In the northwest part of India the Kattywar breed of horses is so
generally striped, that, as I hear from Colonel Poole, who examined
this breed for the Indian Government, a horse without stripes is not
considered as purely bred. The spine is always striped; the legs are
generally barred; and the shoulder-stripe, which is sometimes double
and sometimes treble, is common; the side of the face, moreover, is
sometimes striped. The stripes are often plainest in the foal; and
sometimes quite disappear in old horses. Colonel Poole has seen both
gray and bay Kattywar horses striped when first foaled. I have also
reason to suspect, from information given me by Mr. W.W. Edwards, that
with the English 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 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,
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 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.
I am aware that Colonel Hamilton Smith, who has written on this
subject, believes that the several breeds of the horse are descended
from several aboriginal 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 ponies,
Norwegian cobs, the lanky Kattywar race, &c., inhabiting the most
distant parts of the world, should have all have been crossed with one
supposed aboriginal stock.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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