forded by parts or organs of an important and
uniform nature occasionally varying so as to acquire, in some degree,
the character of the same part or organ in an allied species. I have
collected a long list of such cases; but here, as before, I lie under
a great disadvantage in not being able to give them. I can only repeat
that such cases certainly do occur, and seem to me very remarkable.

I will, however, give one curious and complex case, not indeed as
affecting any important character, but from occurring in several species
of the same genus, partly under domestication and partly under nature.
It is a case apparently of reversion. The ass not rarely has very
distinct transverse bars on its legs, like those on the legs of a zebra:
it has been asserted that these are plainest in the foal, and from
inquiries which I have made, I believe this to be true. It has also
been asserted that the stripe on each shoulder is sometimes double.
The shoulder stripe is certainly very variable in length and outline. A
white ass, but NOT an albino, has been described without either spinal
or shoulder-stripe; and these stripes are sometimes very obscure, or
actually quite lost, in dark-coloured asses. The koulan of Pallas is
said to have been seen with a double shoulder-stripe. The hemionus has
no shoulder-stripe; but traces of it, as stated by Mr. Blyth and others,
occasionally appear: and I have been informed by Colonel Poole that the
foals of this species are generally striped on the legs, and faintly on
the shoulder. The quagga, though so plainly barred like a zebra over the
body, is without bars on the legs; but Dr. Gray has figured one specimen
with very distinct zebra-like bars on the hocks.

With respect to the horse, I have collected cases in England of the
spinal stripe in horses of the most distinct breeds, and of ALL colours;
transverse bars on the legs are not rare in duns, mouse-duns, and in one
instance in a chestnut: a faint shoulder-stripe may sometimes be seen
in duns, and I have seen a trace in a bay horse. My son made a careful
examination and sketch for me of a dun Belgian cart-horse with a double
stripe on each shoulder and with leg-stripes; and a man, whom I can
implicitly trust, has examined for me a small dun Welch pony with THREE
short parallel stripes on each shoulder.

In the north-west part of India the Kattywar breed of horses is so
generally striped, that, as I hear from Colonel Poole, who examined
the b