ar, and gives an ingenious reason
for the preference. Aristotle (_H.A._ VI, 22) says that the Scythians
rode their pregnant mares until the very last, saying that the
exercise rendered parturition more easy. Every breeder of heavy draft
horses has seen a mare taken from the plough and have her foal in the
field, with no detriment to either: and the story of the mare Keheilet
Ajuz, who founded the best of the Arab families, is well known, but
bears repetition. I quote from Spencer Borden, _The Arab Horse_, p.
44: "It is related that a certain Sheik was flying from an enemy,
mounted on his favourite mare. Arab warriors trust themselves only to
mares, they will not ride a stallion in war. The said mare was at the
time far along toward parturition: indeed she became a mother when the
flying horseman stopped for rest at noonday, the new comer being a
filly. Being hard pressed the Sheik was compelled to remount his mare
and again seek safety in flight, abandoning the newborn filly to her
fate. Finally reaching safety among his own people, great was the
surprise of all when, shortly after the arrival of the Sheik on his
faithful mare, the little filly less than a day old came into camp
also, having followed her mother across miles of desert. She was
immediately given into the care of an old woman of the tribe (Ajuz
= an old woman), hence her name Keheilet Ajuz, 'the mare of the old
woman,' and grew to be the most famous of all the animals in the
history of the breed."]

[Footnote 140: Varro does not describe the livery of the horses of his
day, as he does of cattle, but Virgil (_Georg_. III, 81) supplies the
deficiency, asserting that the best horses were bay (_spadices_) and
roan (_glauci_) while the least esteemed were white (_albi_) and dun
(_gilvi_), which is very interesting testimony in support of the most
recent theory of the origin of the thoroughbred horse. Professor
Ridgeway who, opposing Darwin's conclusion, contends for a multiple
origin of the historic and recent races of horses, has collected a
mass of information about the marking of famous horses of all ages in
his _Origin and Influence of the Thoroughbred Horse_. He maintains
that a bay livery, with a white star and stockings, the development
of protective coloration from an originally striped coat, such as has
gone on more recently in the case of the quaggas, is absolute evidence
of the North African origin of a horse, and he shows that all the
swiftest hors