linen of Queen Isabella), seems to have been common in ancient times. See
also Pallas's account of the wild horses of the East, who speaks of dun and
brown as the prevalent colours. In the Icelandic sagas, which were
committed to writing in the twelfth century, dun-coloured horses with a
black spinal stripe are mentioned; see Dasent's translation volume 1 page
169.) has collected a large body of evidence showing that this tint was
common in the East as far back as the time of Alexander, and that the wild
horses of Western Asia and Eastern Europe now are, or recently were, of
various shades of dun. It seems that not very long ago a wild breed of dun-
coloured horses with a spinal stripe was preserved in the royal parks in
Prussia. I hear from Hungary that the inhabitants of that country look at
the duns with a spinal stripe as the aboriginal stock, and so it is in
Norway. Dun-coloured ponies are not rare in the mountainous parts of
Devonshire, Wales, and Scotland, where the aboriginal breed would have the
best chance of being preserved. In South America in the time of Azara, when
the horse had been feral for about 250 years, 90 out of 100 horses were
"bai-chatains," and the remaining ten were "zains," that is brown; not more
than one in 2000 being black. In North America the feral horses show a
strong tendency to become roans of various shades; but in certain parts, as
I hear from Dr. Canfield, they are mostly duns and striped. (2/42. Azara
'Quadrupedes du Paraguay' tome 2 page 307. In North America Catlin (volume
2 page 57) describes the wild horses, believed to have descended from the
Spanish horses of Mexico, as of all colours, black, grey, roan, and roan
pied with sorrel. F. Michaux 'Travels in North America' English translation
page 235, describes two wild horses from Mexico as roan. In the Falkland
Islands, where the horse has been feral only between 60 and 70 years, I was
told that roans and iron-greys were the prevalent colours. These several
facts show that horses do not soon revert to any uniform colour.)

In the following chapters on the Pigeon we shall see that a blue bird is