192 THE HORSE AND ITS RELATIVES 



presence in the newly-born foal of a thick crest of 

 long hairs, mostly rusty brown in colour, extending 

 backwards from the withers alono- the back and 

 tail to the terminal tuft of the latter, so as to form 

 a continuation of the mane. If, as has been sug- 

 gested, the colour-pattern of Gravy's zebra is the 

 most primitive in the whole group, it may be that 

 the spinal crest of the foal is likewise a remnant 

 of an ancestral feature. 



The large size of the ears and the narrowness 

 of the stripes in this species are not improbably 

 connected with a life spent partially in thick scrub ; 

 large ears being very commonly present in forest- 

 dwelling animals, while narrow, vertically disposed 

 stripes appear to be an adaptation for conceal- 

 ment in jungle. 



Gravy's zebra, which stands about 13 hands in 

 height, is divisible into two races. In the typical 

 race, from the highlands of the Shoa district of 

 Abyssinia, the dark stripes are black and the light 

 ones white ; but in the Somali race {E. grevyi ber-- 

 berensis), which is restricted to the western districts 

 of Somaliland, the dark stripes are chocolate-brown, 

 and the intervening bands ochery, so that the con- 

 trast between the two is much less strongly marked 

 than in the Abyssinian animal. Indeed Mr. Drake- 

 Brockman,^ who incorrectly refers to it as a small 

 zebra with broad stripes, states that the Somali 



^ The Mammals of Somaliland, London, 1910, p. 105. 



