The Horse of America in His Derivation, History, and Development

by John Hankins Wallace

“The colt and filly were taken up from grass for my inspection, and owing to the present state of their coats I could not ascertain whether they bear any indications of spots on the rump, the dark pasterns, or the narrow strips on the forehead, with which the quagga is marked. They have no appearance of the dark lines along the belly or the white tufts on the side of the mane. Both their manes are black; that of the filly is short and stiff, and stands upright; and Sir Gore Ousley’s stud groom alleged it never was otherwise; that of the colt is long, but so stiff as to arch upward, and to hang clear of the side of the neck, in which circumstance it resembles that of a hybrid. This is the more remarkable, as the mane of the Arabian breed hangs lank and closer to the neck than those of most others. The bars across the legs, both of the hybrid and of the colt and filly, are more strongly defined and darker than those on the legs of the quagga, which are very slightly marked; and though the hybrid has several quagga marks which the colt and filly have not, yet the most striking, namely, the stripes on the forehand, are fewer and less apparent than those on the colt and filly. These circumstances may appear singular, but I think you will agree with me that they are trifles compared with the extraordinary fact of so many striking features which do not belong to the dam, being in two successive instances communicated through her to the progeny not only of another sire, who also had them not, but to a sire probably of another species; for such we have very strong reasons for supposing the quagga to be”

This is Lord Morton’s original quagga story without abridgement, the substance of which has been quoted and printed millions of times, but I never have seen anything like an analysis of it, either for or against its value as determining any fact or principle in breeding. The elements are: a young chestnut mare, “seven-eighths Arabian blood,” was bred to a quagga and produced a hybrid. She was afterward bred to a black “Arabian” and produced a colt and a filly that were supposed to be marked like the quagga; hence, first impregnations influence all subsequent foals; and hence “the heredity of influence,” as called by some scientists. Lord Morton has given an intelligent and, no doubt, faithful description of the colt and the filly that came out of the mare that had previously produced the hybrid quagga; but he has failed to show that none of the near-by ancestors of the sire and dam of this colt and filly were of a dun color and were marked just as the colt and filly were marked. Until it is shown that the peculiar markings of this colt and filly could not have been inherited from their natural ancestors, the half-formed theory that they were the result of the coupling with the quagga, years before, wholly fails to satisfy the human understanding. When Lord Morton tells us that the dam was seven-eighths, and the sire full Arabian, he seems to think he has covered that point; but he has not, for he has not shown that there was a single drop of Arabian blood in either of them. It must not be forgotten that at the period here referred to all Eastern and Southern horses were called Arabians, when not one in fifty of them ever saw Arabia either through his own eyes or through the eyes of any of his ancestors. The composite material out of which the English race horse was built up was of all colors, including the dun, with the dark stripe on his back, the short stripes or patches on his shoulders, and the transverse bars on his legs. A horse of this color, I am told, once won the Derby. The Kattywar horses of Northwestern India, Mr. Darwin informs us, are from fifteen to sixteen hands high, of all colors, with the several shades of dun the most common, and when one of them fails of having the spinal stripe, the shoulder stripes, and the leg stripes the purity of his breeding is doubted. This is the type of horse the British officers ride, and when their term of service expires sometimes bring home with them. There are many duns in Persia and in Eastern Asia Minor, I am informed, and the stripes seem to belong to the color. In Norway the color of the native horse is dun and the stripes are considered evidence of pure breeding. Many of the mountain horses of Spain are duns, with the stripes. The dun color prevailed, to a greater or less extent, among the native English horses of three hundred years ago, and some of them were brought to this country in the early colonial period. Mr. Darwin, in his “Animals and Plants under Domestication,” fully describes the dun horses of Devonshire, and in order to be clearly understood he figures one of them showing the dark stripes on the shoulder and the transverse bars upon the legs. I have seen numbers of dun horses so marked, in this country, the most conspicuous that I can now recall being Wapsie, the distinguished son of Green’s Bashaw. The fact that horses of this color and marking are to be found in all parts of the globe, has led many thoughtful writers to the conclusion that these characteristics are among the very earliest in the history of the horse. To bring this instance to a close, I must say:

1. Beyond the color alone of the sire and dam of this colt and filly, there is no evidence whatever that they might not have inherited, by ordinary generation, the color and markings from some of their ancestors.

2. The miscegenous breeding of the ass upon the mare has been practiced, we know, for more than three thousand years, and yet in all that time, and down to our own day and experiences, there has been no established indication that the first impregnation of the filly by the ass had any influence whatever upon her subsequent produce by the horse.

This theory of the first impregnation having an influence on all subsequent produce is probably more generally maintained among dog fanciers than any other class of breeders. In some instances when a valuable maiden bitch gets astray she is banished from the kennel and either destroyed or given away. For this foolish notion some antique authority might be cited. Burdach, a French writer on physiology, says:

“If a bitch be once put to a dog of another race, every litter of puppies afterward will include one belonging to that other breed, except the first time she be put only to dogs of her own breed.”

This is a kind of pseudo science that is only calculated to mislead, for the vital facts are omitted. What was the pedigree of the bitch? She may have looked like a well-bred pointer and a high price may have been paid for her, but her sire may have been a mongrel, or, possibly, a miserable cur. No dog breeder or dog dealer has ever been known to drown the results of a mésalliance if it was a fairly good-looking puppy. It goes into the records as a thoroughbred and finds a market. When a dog and a bitch, seeming to be well-bred and costing a high price, bring into the world a litter of puppies showing a mixed inheritance, the fancier at once jumps to the conclusion that there is something mysterious about it, and as he has heard of the evil results of first impregnations, he thinks he has discovered the source of the trouble and straightway this is another example resulting from first impregnation. He then goes back on the dealer, or possibly the breeder, and there to conceal the fact that the blood of his kennel was not pure, he would naturally play the rogue and admit that the young bitch might have got astray. This satisfies the unsophisticated owner, and another trick of an unscrupulous “dog jockey” goes on record as a case of “heredity of influence,” when in fact it was nothing more nor less than a dirty fraud in the breeding of the dog or bitch, or both.

Some of the early French writers on scientific subjects, as Burdach, Michelet, etc., advanced the theory more than a hundred years ago that the children of a second marriage, in some cases, inherited the resemblance and character of the first husband. In the nature of things this theory could have but very feeble support and that chiefly among scandalmongers. In connection with this phase of “heredity of influence” I will give a little instance of my personal experience. Twenty years ago, or more, I was making an address before an association, in a New England city, on the subject of “How to Breed the Trotting Horse.” The audience was very large and composed exclusively of gentlemen. At the opening it was announced that at the close of each specific topic an opportunity would be given to any one in the audience to ask questions on the thoughts presented. The signal had hardly been given when a gentleman arose in the audience and raised the question whether I had not omitted an important fact in heredity? He then went on to rehearse the everlasting quagga story, with a most confident flourish of his learning and a sure grasp on a triumph.

“The quagga story,” I remarked, “is well known to everybody, but there are some facts about it that are not known to anybody. The mare herself may have been from a dun tribe of horses, or the horse to which she was afterward bred may have been from such a tribe, hundreds of which have stripes on the back, the shoulders and the legs, and thus the stripes might be accounted for by indirect heredity; not because the quagga had stripes, but because the dun horse ancestry had stripes. Most people, probably, look upon it as a freak of nature, and as the case has never duplicated itself, in all the years before or since, it fails to be a practical question, and in our personal experiences as breeders, we need not be afraid of suffering harm from it.”

“Your explanation,” replied my interlocutor, “fails to cover the case, I think, for I have seen, with my own eyes, instances of it in the human family and I will relate one. A dozen years ago, or more, a friend of mine married a lady who was a brunette in complexion, with black eyes and black hair. He was of florid complexion, with blue eyes and sandy hair, just about the color of my own. After three or four years the husband died leaving two children of his own complexion and color of eyes and hair. In course of time the widow married a man with black hair and black eyes, and there came a second set of children that were as perfect reproductions of the first husband as his own children were in complexion and color of hair.”