ength, 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;[142] 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. Hence we may conclude
that, if grey and reddish-brown asses had been steadily selected and bred
from, the shoulder-stripe would have been almost as generally and as
completely lost 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.[143] 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 has been figured in the
dun Devonshire pony. I have seen three cases of the terminal portion
abruptly and angularly bent; and two cases of a distinct though slight
forking. In Syria, Dr. Hooker and his party observed for me no less than
five instances of the shoulder-stripe being plainly forked over the fore
leg. In the common mule it is likewise sometimes forked. When I first
noticed the forking and angular bending of the shoulder-stripe, I had seen
enough of the stripes {64} in the various equine species to feel convinced
that even a character so unimportant as this had a distinct meaning, and
was thus led to attend to the subject. I now find that in the _Asinus
Burchellii_ and _quagga_, the stripe which corresponds with the
shoulder-stripe of the ass, as well as some of the stripes on the neck,
bifurcate, and that some of those near the shoulder have their extremities
angularly bent backwards. The forking and angular bending of the stripes on
the shoulders apparently stand in relation with the changed direction of
the nearly upright stripes on the sides of the body and neck to the
transverse bars on the legs. Finally we see that the presence of shoulder,
leg, and spinal stripes in the horse,--their occasional absence in the
ass,--the occurrence of double and triple shoulder-stripes in both animals,
and the similar manner in which these stripes terminate at their lower
extremities,--are all cases of analogous variation in the horse and as