Il] THE EXISTING EQUIDAE 55 



ZEBRAS. 



We now pass to the zebras, which although placed by some 

 zoologists in a separate genus (Hippotigris) cannot be so com- 

 pletely divided from the other Equidae. 



The zebras are all found in Africa, and it will be ob- 

 served that whilst the most northerly of them overlap the 

 true asses, in Somaliland and Abyssinia, yet for the most part 

 they inhabit the vast regions extending from the countries just 

 named down to the Cape and along the west to Angolaland. 

 Similarly in Asia the true asses, though overlapping Prej- 

 valsky's horse in Mongolia, are found largely south-west of 

 the central mountain chain, in which region it will be made 

 probable that the true Equus caballus never existed in a wild 

 state. 



Although the zebra only became known to the modern 

 world after the Portuguese had established their factories on 

 the coast of Congo and Angola, it seems certain that this 

 animal was known to the Romans, for it can hardly be doubted 

 that the Hippotigris^ slaughtered in the amphitheatre at Rome 

 in the reign of Caracalla (a.d. 212 — 217), in company with an 

 elephant, a rhinoceros and a tiger, was one of the striped 

 African asses. Prof Ewart - may be right in suggesting that 



1 Dio Cassius, lxxvii. 3 {apit. Xiphilini), eXefpavra /xev yap koI pivoK^pora Kai 

 Tiypiv Kai Itttt OTiypLV ev ovdefi Xoyio deirj dv rts (povevofxivovs iv rf dedrpcjj' 6 de 

 Kai /j.ovofJidx^v dvdpwi' oti TrXfiaruiv ^;^aipei' a'i/xaai, Kai eva ye avrCiv Bdrwr'a rpiffiv 

 ((pe^r/s di'5pd(Xt.v oirXop-axW"-^ ^V o-^tv VP'-^P'f dvayKacras, ^Tretra dwodavhvra virb tov 

 TeXeuratou v€pL<pavei ra^fi irifx-qcre. Liddell and Scott's Lex., s. v., wrongly 

 explains linrbTLypis as a large kind of tiger on the analogy of such forms as 

 iinroaeXtvov, etc., in which the prefix gives the sense of hugeness (cf. /iocsc-leech, 

 the use of jiov- in pov\i/xos, and that of hagti, 'elephant,' in Sanskrit). The true 

 analogues of iwwoTiypis are such compounds as i-n-n-oKevTavpos (which does not 

 mean a huge Centaur, but a creature, half-horse, half-centaur, thus distinguish- 

 ing the later Centaurs of semi-equine shape from the early Centaurs, who were 

 a wholly human tribe of Mount Pelion), and the famous iiriraKeKTpvibv ('horse- 

 cock ') of Aeschylus, which certainly was not a huge cock, but a creature 

 half-horse, half-cock, just as his rpay^Xacpos was half-goat, half-stag. 



2 Penycuik Experiments, p. 10. This is rendered all the more probable by 

 the fact that in Roman times not only did the elephants of Abyssinia and 

 Somaliland furnish much ivory, but Strabo describes a rhinoceros from the 

 latter region, which he himself saw either at Alexandria or Rome. 



