10 THE PENYCUIK EXPERIMENTS. 



ingly energetic, and he seemed to enjoy nothing- better 

 than coursing about his paddock as if he were escaping 

 from some dreaded foe. He is now wonderfully tame, and 

 courts rather than shuns notice ; and from the first he has 

 behaved himself quite differently from a young New Forest 

 mule I had the opportunity of constantly watching during 

 last summer. In nearly all his movements Romulus 

 resembles his sire rather than his dam ; he has not the 

 dainty action of a young mule or a young donkey, and yet 

 he differs in his gait from a horse. As he grows older I 

 anticipate the beautiful action of the zebra will become 

 more and more apparent. The Arab mare, Bernabit, when 

 set free in the field carries her head high in the air in a 

 most suggestive way as she gallops about. The zebra 

 horse, on the other hand, carries his head low, and twists 

 his neck as if engaged in single combat, ready to seize the 

 limbs of an adversary. In his gambols the hybrid carries 

 himself like a zebra, and this without once having had an 

 opportunity of seeing Matopo disporting himself. 



When in the field with mares the zebra horse herds 

 them most jealously ; when anyone appears on the scene 

 he gallops along uttering his war-cry, prepared to defend 

 his troop against all comers. I shall not be surprised 

 should Romulus imitate his sire in this also, should an 

 opportunity offer by-and-by. 



As the time drew near for the birth of the hybrid I 

 became more and more curious as to which of its parents 

 it would most resemble in shape and colour. When two 

 distinct types are crossed the progeny may pi-esent the 

 characters of both parents, or may closely resemble one of 

 the parents, or by reverting towards the ancestral type 

 differ decidedly from the immediate ancestors. For 

 example, mules sometimes closely resemble donkeys, at 

 other times they resemble ponies. Again, when a fantail 

 is crossed with a pouter, the young sometimes resemble a 

 blue rock, the supposed remote ancestor of all the pigeons. 

 There has probably been no intercrossing for many 

 thousands of years between zebras and the other wild 



