NATURAL HISTORY OF SOUTH AFRICA 



are captured and kindly treated, they become quite 

 tame in a month or two, so much so that when 

 released in an enclosure they graze as unconcernedly 

 as a domestic horse, and can be driven back into the 

 stable without difficulty. 



An animal dealer in Port Elizabeth tamed them 

 so thoroughly that they used to follow him about 

 the paddock. One was trained to the saddle, and 

 his little son of ten years rode it. 



The immature males were equally docile. 

 Stallions were more difficult to tame, but even 

 they became quite tame within a few months, 

 and after about a year could be trained to the 

 saddle. Old stallions, however, are practically un- 

 tameable, and for some months after capture they 

 are very vicious, advancing with teeth bared in a 

 most menacing manner. I noticed they always used 

 their teeth for defence or attack, and not their heels, 

 as is usual with the horse tribe. A farmer acquaint- 

 ance had a fine donkey stallion maimed by a Mountain 

 Zebra stallion. The latter had been leading a soli- 

 tary existence, and for several days he had been 

 endeavouring to gain the affections of some donkey 

 mares on the hillside. The donkey stallion resented 

 this, and attacked him, but was so badly bitten that 

 he had to be shot to put him out of his misery. On 

 this same farm a solitary old Zebra stallion used to 

 pay nightly visits to the crops, leaping over the 

 barbed-wire fences and stone walls with ease. One 

 moonlight night he was surprised in a field of corn, 



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