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Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication, the — Volume 1 by Charles Darwin
page 87 of 624 (13%)
obscure as to be visible only in certain lights, like the stripes which may
be seen on black kittens. These stripes were distinct on the hind-quarters,
where they diverged from the spine, and pointed a little forwards; many of
them as they diverged became a little branched, exactly in the same manner
as in some zebrine species. The stripes were plainest on the forehead
between the ears, where they formed a set of pointed arches, one under the
other, decreasing in size downwards towards the muzzle; exactly similar
marks may be seen on the forehead of the quagga and Burchell's zebra. When
this foal was two or three months old all the stripes entirely disappeared.
I have seen similar marks on the forehead of a fully grown, fallow-dun,
cob-like horse, having a conspicuous spinal stripe, and with its front legs
well barred.

In Norway the colour of the native horse or pony is dun, varying from
almost cream-colour to dark-mouse dun; and an animal is not considered
purely bred unless it has the spinal and leg-stripes. (2/34. I have
received information, through the kindness of the Consul-General, Mr. J.R.
Crowe, from Prof. Boeck, Rasck, and Esmarck, on the colours of the
Norwegian ponies. See also 'The Field' 1861 page 431.) My son estimated
that about a third of the ponies which he saw there had striped legs; he
counted seven stripes on the fore-legs and two on the hind-legs of one
pony; only a few of them exhibited traces of shoulder stripes; but I have
heard of a cob imported from Norway which had the shoulder as well as the
other stripes well developed. Colonel H. Smith (2/35. Col. Hamilton Smith
'Nat. Lib.' volume 12 page 275.) alludes to dun-horses with the spinal
stripe in the Sierras of Spain; and the horses originally derived from
Spain, in some parts of South America, are now duns. Sir W. Elliot informs
me that he inspected a herd of 300 South American horses imported into
Madras, and many of these had transverse stripes on the legs and short
shoulder-stripes; the most strongly marked individual, of which a coloured
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