The legs of the ass are often striped, and this may be considered as a reversion to the wild parent form, the Equus taeniopus of Abyssinia (13/30. Sclater in 'Proc. Zoolog. Soc.' 1862 page 163.), which is generally thus striped. In the domestic animal the stripes on the shoulder are occasionally double, or forked at the extremity, as in certain zebrine species. There is reason to believe that the foal is more frequently striped on the legs than the adult animal. As with the horse, I have not acquired any distinct evidence that the crossing of differently-coloured varieties of the ass brings out the stripes. But now let us turn to the result of crossing the horse and ass. Although mules are not nearly so numerous in England as asses, I have seen a much greater number with striped legs, and with the stripes far more conspicuous than in either parent-form. Such mules are generally light-coloured, and might be called fallow-duns. The shoulder-stripe in one instance was deeply forked at the extremity, and in another instance was double, though united in the middle. Mr. Martin gives a figure of a Spanish mule with strong zebra-like marks on its legs (13/31. 'History of the Horse' page 212.), and remarks that mules are particularly liable to be thus striped on their legs. In South America, according to Roulin (13/32. 'Mem. presentes par divers Savans a l'Acad. Royale' tome 6 1835 page 338.), such stripes are more frequent and conspicuous in the mule than in the ass. In the United States, Mr. Gosse (13/33. 'Letters from Alabama' 1859 page 280.), speaking of these animals, says, "that in a great number, perhaps in nine out of every ten, the legs are banded with transverse dark stripes." Many years ago I saw in the Zoological Gardens a curious triple hybrid, from a bay mare, by a hybrid from a male ass and female zebra. This animal when old had hardly any stripes; but I was assured by the superintendent, that when young it had shoulder-stripes, and faint stripes on its flanks and legs. I mention this case more especially as an instance of the stripes being much plainer during youth than in old age. As the zebra has such a conspicuously striped body and legs, it might have been expected that the hybrids from this animal and the common ass would have had their legs in some degree striped; but it appears from the figures given in Dr. Gray's 'Knowsley Gleanings' and still more plainly from that given by Geoffroy and F. Cuvier (13/34. 'Hist. Nat. des Mammiferes' 1820 tome 1), that the legs are much more conspicuously striped than the rest of the body; and this fact is intelligible only on the belief that the ass aids in giving, through the power of reversion, this character to its hybrid offspring.