78 THE EXISTING EQUIDAE [CH. 



if not quite so docile as the quagga, nevertheless enjoyed a 

 similar immunity from the native horse-pests, it was not 

 until 1892 that any effort was made to domesticate this fine 

 animal. At the Agricultural Show held in Pretoria in April 

 of that year the distinguished Irishman, Capt. M. H. Hayes, 

 "broke in a zebra, which belonged to Mr Ziervogel, quiet to 

 ride after about half-an-hour's handling without having to 

 throw him down, tie him head to tail, or to resort to any of the 

 other heroic methods of the horse-tamer." Capt. Hayes having 

 thus shown the ease with which the Burchell Zebra could be 

 utilized, the Boers seem to have at once caught at the idea. 

 Mr Harod Stephens, writing from Pretoria in the following 

 December, stated that the coaching firm of Messrs Zeedesberg 

 had some two months previously [October] purchased eight half- 

 grown zebras from a hunter named Groblaar, who "caught them 

 in a wild state between four and five months ago [i.e. in July or 

 August] by riding after and lassoing them." "During the last 

 month they have been in training for harness, with the result 

 that four of them are perfectly quiet and well-trained, and the 

 remaining four partially trained." "They pull very well and 

 are very willing, and never jib — a vice which is very prevalent 

 in the horses of this country \" 



The Germans in East Africa, learninof wisdom from the 

 folly of the Boers and English in South Africa, are now 

 utilizing the Grant Zebras in Kilima Ndjaro-, and I learn from 

 Prof Ewart that the same wise policy is being carried out in 

 British East Africa, where in addition zebra hybrids are bred. 



The survey of the Equidae shows that the tendency to 

 stripes is least in the northern latitudes where the genus first 

 made its appearance in Asia, that this tendency gradually 

 increases as we advance southwards, that it reaches its maximum 

 in the tropical and sub-tropical regions of Africa, and that it 

 shows a tendency to disappear in Chapman's Zebra (Fig. 36) of 

 the Transvaal and Orange River Colony, and to a still greater 



^ Tegetmeier, Horses, Asses, Zebras, p. 56. 



2 The Field, 1901. I learn from Mr C. W. Hobley, Sub-commissioner in 

 Brit. E. Africa, that the domesticated zebras both tliere and in German E. Africa 

 at first suffered greatly from the ravages of an obscure form of life, but a remedy 

 has now been found, and their utilization is i3roceeding successfully. 



