Ixvi GENEEAL INTRODUCTION. 



for reversion. Still, as a rule, the parent that has been 

 longest continuously inbred to one animal is likely to be 

 most prepotent. One might even go further than Mr. 

 Howard as to the transmission of colour. The general 

 ground colour in summer of zebras is not, as a rule, 

 white. Matopo, the sire of my hybrids^ is a light dun, 

 but not nearly so light as many cream-coloured horses, 

 the spaces between the stripes over the sides and back 

 being of a light sand or cement colour. His less remote 

 ancestors were doubtless still darker. In their body 

 colour none of my hybrids take after the sire j'^ five take 

 after their respective dams, four are duns, and probably 

 take after their maternal ancestors. In their colour the 

 zebras, with the exception of the quagga, are highly 

 specialised. The majority of the quaggas seem to have 

 been of a yellowish-brown colour overlaid with not very 

 well defined stripes of a darker shade. In the Burchell 

 and other living zebras the stripes have evidently been 

 gradually intensified, and the ground colour lightened. 

 Matopo has neither been able to stamp his own peculiar 

 pattern or his own colours on his hybrid offspring. Like 

 the Dalmatian, he seems to have bestowed the ancestral 

 markings, but (unlike the Dalmatian) he has had less in- 

 fluence in settling the ground colour — this has been 

 determined by the dams of the hybrids. The hybrids of 

 the better bred mai-es are of a bay or chestnut hue — the 

 prevailing colour of Arab foals ; the hybrids of the High- 

 land, Shetland, and Iceland mares are of a dun colour, 

 and thus they probably take after the horses that in olden 

 times inhabited the north temperate regions. Over 90 

 per cent, of the horses bred in England are, as foals, 

 still darker than Matopo — are bays, chestnuts, or browns ; 

 and if inquiries were made it would probably be found foals 

 are still darker the nearer we approach the Arctic circle. 

 Of twenty Arab foals bred this year (1898) by Mr. 

 Wilfrid Blunt, 65 per cent, are bays, 15 per cent, chest- 



* The light body colour in zebras has doubtless been acquired compara- 

 tively recently, hence it is never transmitted to cross-bred offspring. 



