ZEBRAS AND THEIR CHARACTERISTICS 153 



zebra is invariably a picture of grace and beauty, 

 a perfect type of feral life. 



Before entering upon tbe characteristics and 

 habitats of the various members of the zebra group, 

 it may be worth while to glance back for a moment 

 at the ancestors of these and others of the great 

 equine family. It seems rather absurd to remember 

 that the nearest living relatives which the horses, 

 zebras, and asses now possess on this earth of ours 

 are the tapirs and rhinoceroses; but so it is. Far 

 back in dim and remote epochs these animals can be 

 traced to a common ancestry, — the Pcrissodadyla, 

 or "odd-toed" animals. To sum up briefly the 

 wonderful discoveries of geologists and palseon- 

 tologists relating to this subject, the equine pedigree 

 may be thus traced: 1. Hyracotherium ; 2. Palse- 

 otherium ; 3. Anchitherium ; 4. Hipparion and allied 

 forms ; 5. Zebras, Horses, and Asses. 



These successions and developments have, of 

 course, been the slow product of thousands upon 

 thousands of years. In process of time the far 

 remote ancestors of these families branched off and 

 became developed and specialized in various forms ; 

 and the horse and zebra may now turn up their 

 handsome muzzles and consider themselves only 

 ''very distantly connected" with the tapir and 

 rhinoceros. On the other hand, these latter 

 creatures may retort by pointing, as evidence of 



