X GENERAL INTRODUCTION. 



When I came to seriously consider the " infection " or 

 telegony problem, it was at once evident that a special 

 study of the bands, stripes, and other markings in the 

 Equidte was indispensable. Though much has been 

 written bearing on the coloration of zebras, I failed to 

 find anything- approaching a full account of the plan of 

 the stripes in even the mountain zebra {Equus zehra), 

 which has been almost constantly under observation in 

 England for more than a century. Hence the necessity 

 of working up, as far as the available material permitted, 

 the whole coloration question in the Equidae, and hence 

 it is that so much apace is occupied with a description of 

 the bands and stripes in my zebra stallion, and with 

 pointing- out how he differs from other zebras and from 

 zebra hybrids. 



It will be gathered from the first paper that I started 

 with the idea that there are three kinds of zebras, each 

 having its own distinctive characters. I still believe that 

 there are three distinct types of zebras, but I no longer 

 believe that all three types can be readily distinguished 

 from each other by their markings. The three types are 



(1) Grevy^s zebra [E. grevyi) of Shoa* and Somaliland ; 



(2) the mountain zebra [E. zehra), once common in South 

 Africa, and generally referred to in old woi-ks as "' the 

 zebra," or " the common zebra ;'^ and (3) the widely dis- 

 tributed Burchell group of zebras, including many species — 

 or, at least, sub-species and varieties, — some of which are 

 unfortunately often spoken of as quaggas. At the risk 

 of iteration I may add that the Somali or Grevy's zebra 

 (for a time confounded with the mountain zebra of South 

 Africa) stands apart from all the others. It is profusely 

 striped, measures sometimes quite fifteen hands (sixty 

 inches), and is, I think, the most primitive of all the 

 living striped horses. I considered the mountain zebra 

 equally distinctive until some months ago, when I came 

 across a skin which seems to connect this long-known 



* It was doubtless the Shoa zebra, and not, as has hitherto been taken 

 for granted, tlie mountain zebra of Soutli Africa, that was exhibited in the 

 Roman amphitheatre during the third century of the present era. 



