AS WORKING ANIMALS 481 



strength of the mothers was considered. They were good- 

 natured and tractable for mules, and were broken to the 

 saddle and to harness. The two tallest specimens, over 14 

 hands, went to work in a mountain battery in Northern India. 



The early official reports of these animals were not entirely 

 satisfactory in relation to the unsuitability of their feet to a 

 hilly country ; their need for a larger amount of food than 

 the ordinary mule ; and their suffering from fever and catarrh 

 and falling off in condition with hard work. But the trials 

 have not been extensive enough nor carried on long enough 

 to settle the question of the suitability or otherwise of the 

 zebrule for military purposes. 



Carl Hagenbeck, of Hamburg, secured eight of the number 

 when the Penicuik experiments came to an end. Six of them 

 were sent to the St Louis Exposition in 1904, and sold, to 

 develop an interest in America in the new cross. The two 

 retained by Hagenbeck, and valued at 200, are regularly 

 driven in his private carriage, and are said to be hard workers, 

 doing quite 50 per cent, more work than any horse. It is 

 generally admitted that zebroids are stronger for their size 

 than common mules, and there can be no difficulty in breed- 

 ing them up to 16 and 17 hands, by Grevy's Somaliland zebra 

 on mares of any of the heavy cart breeds. The first zebra 

 cross on record appears to have been bred by Lord Clive 

 about the beginning of the last quarter of the eighteenth 

 century, by mating a common jack and a female mountain 

 zebra. Mountain zebra crosses are reported to be more 

 difficult to handle than other zebrules, and those by under- 

 bred mares worse than those showing some quality. Similar 

 crosses were bred in Italy and in Paris early in the 

 nineteenth century. Zebra-ass hybrids were bred at Knowsley 

 and at Windsor Park in the reign of George IV. Zebra 

 crossing in different ways was carried out later in Paris and 

 Melbourne, and several similar crosses were bred by Lady 

 Meux, at Theobald Park, Hertfordshire. Lord Morton's 

 famous Quagga-Arab cross was produced in 1815, and Lord 

 Mostyn bred another of the same. The first genuine mule- 

 zebra by a Burchell sire, and probably the most perfect 

 specimen that has yet been produced, was Ewart's " Romulus " 

 by " Matopa " out of " Mulatto," a West Highland pony, 

 in 1896. Baron de Parana, of Brazil, has since bred a 



2 H 



