A very significant result followed from a special examination of 300 cart horses, as distinguished from hackneys. These showed the astonishing number of 277 specimens of what I call the abnormal and only 23 of the normal type. This special group in no way weakens the force of the larger study of 748, for the 300 cart horses are included in it, and, if removed, would have left the normal specimens in the hackney or general group very much more numerous. Looking at the cart horses, which are specimens of a highly-specialised breed for heavy draught purposes, one may assert with some confidence that, for them, the normal pattern of the hackney is becoming their abnormal. It must be remembered that these great creatures with large muscular necks are during most of their time of work pulling hard against the collar, and the very conditions required for making patterns of hair through pressure of harness are present in a remarkable degree. It is indeed an undesigned experiment within an experiment.
Analogy.
In addition to these statistics which may be taken as conclusive on this question of the normal arrangement, I must point out that it is against all reason, and analogy from all other mammals, to doubt that the normal arrangement is as I describe it. No hair-clad mammal either within the family of the Equidæ, or without, has any other arrangement on the under surface of its neck than what is here shown to be the normal one—a uniform uninterrupted slope from the head to the chest. There is also a feature of this greatly variegated piece of the horse’s coat under its neck, and that is that it is so highly variegated with diversity of pattern as to make it unlike any normal or natural structure or character in any animal. That is not the way Nature does her normal work. It would be impossible to give illustrations of many of the patterns here found, though I have notes and sketches of a large number taken from the examination of thousands of specimens; so I have selected eight (Figs. 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57 and 58) of the best representatives of these and the details of each are given under each figure.
Effects of Pressure by Harness.
Second.—The next stage of the inquiry demands that one should show the patterns to be due to pressure.
Fig. 51.—Roan cart horse, examined 25th September, 1914. On left side of middle line of the under surface of the neck a short reversed area three inches long, lying vertically—none on the right side.