HISTORY OF QUADRUPEDS. 



THE ZEBRA. 



s Zebra, Linn. I^c Zcbrc, Buff., 



MANY authors have mistaken the Zebra for a 

 wild Ass : it is one of the most beautiful, and also 

 one of the wildest and most untameable animals in 

 nature. It is larger than the Ass, and rather 

 resembles the Mule in shape: its head is large; its 

 ears long; its legs beautifully small, and well 

 placed ; and its body well formed, round, and 

 fleshy: but the beauty of its shape is greatly 

 heightened by the glossy smoothness of its skin, 

 and the amazing regularity and elegance of its 

 colours, which in some are white and brown, and 

 in others white and black, ranged in alternate 

 stripes over the whole body, in a style so beautiful 

 and ornamental, that it would at first sight seem 

 rather the effect of art, than the genuine production 

 of nature: the head is striped with fine bands of 

 black and white, which form a centre in the fore- 

 head ; the neck is adorned with stripes of the same 

 colour running round it; the body is beautifully 



