known to be barred, though only in a slight degree, and not quite
invariably. The stripes are believed to occur most frequently and to be
plainest on the legs of the domestic ass during early youth (2/46. Blyth in
'Charlesworth's Mag. of Nat. Hist.' vol 4 1840 page 83. I have also been
assured by a breeder that this is the case.), as likewise occurs with the
horse. The shoulder-stripe, which is so eminently characteristic of the
species, is nevertheless variable in breadth, length, and manner of
termination. I have measured one four times as broad as another, and some
more than twice as long as others. In one light-grey ass the shoulder-
stripe was only six inches in length, and as thin as a piece of string; and
in another animal of the same colour there was only a dusky shade
representing a stripe. I have heard of three white asses, not albinoes,
with no trace of shoulder or spinal stripes (2/47. One case is given by
Martin 'The Horse' page 205.); and I have seen nine other asses with no
shoulder-stripe, and some of them had no spinal stripe. Three of the nine
were light-greys, one a dark-grey, another grey passing into reddish-roan,
and the others were brown, two being tinted on parts of their bodies with a
reddish or bay shade. If therefore grey and reddish-brown asses had been
steadily selected and bred from, the shoulder stripe would probably have
been lost almost as generally and completely as in the case of the horse.

The shoulder stripe on the ass is sometimes double, and Mr. Blyth has seen
even three or four parallel stripes. (2/48. 'Journal As. Soc. of Bengal'
volume 28 1860 page 231. Martin on the Horse page 205.) I have observed in
ten cases shoulder-stripes abruptly truncated at the lower end, with the
anterior angle produced into a tapering point, precisely as in the above
dun Devonshire pony. I have seen three cases of the terminal portion
abruptly and angularly bent; and have seen and heard of four cases of a
distinct though slight forking of the stripe. In Syria, Dr. Hooker and his
party observed for me no less than five similar instances of the shoulder-