IV] 



THE ORIGIN OF THE LIBYAN HORSE 



463 



and need not be referred to a remote common ancestor of 

 the Burchell zebra and the South American mares. 



Further confirmation of my doctrine that the tendency 

 to stripes is due to the presence of North African blood is 

 afforded by Prof. Ewart's experiments, which point to the 

 conclusion that the less Libyan blood there was in the mares 

 mated with his zebra stallion, the less defined were the stripes 

 in the offspring. Lady Douglas, a young fifteen-hands bay 

 cart-mare by Matopo produced Brenda, who in make and dis- 

 position is quite unlike all the other hybrids : she is of a bay 



Fig. 135. Chapman's variety of the Burchell Zebra. 



colour and not very distinctly striped. As a foal she was less 

 intelligent than her hybrid half-brothers and sisters. Lady 

 Douglas next by Matopo had Black Agnes, who " is almost 

 black, so black that the stripes, though abundant, are hardly 

 visible at a distance of a few yards. Black Agnes may have 

 derived her colour from a recent maternal ancestor." 



Contrast the description of the offspring of the cart-mare 

 with that of Remus (p. 459), the son of the three-quarters bred 

 Irish mare Biddy. Again, the hybrids bred at Theobalds by 

 Sir H. Meux out of a Chapman zebra mare lend some support to 

 this contention. The eldest, by an English pony, is a yellowish- 



