Juty 20, 1899} 
INCA IM OTIS 
273 
tion of ‘ Romulus,” a hybrid colt whose sire ‘*‘ Matopo” 
is a Burchell’s zebra of the Chapmanz form, and whose 
dam “ Mulatto” is an Island of Rum pony. ‘“ Mulatto” 
was afterwards crossed with a grey Arab stallion 
“ Benazrek,” and a description of her second foal, which 
unfortunately only lived for a little over five months, is 
given in the last paper under the head of ‘‘ Telegony and 
Reversion.” The foal in question was naturally a centre 
of great interest, inasmuch as from its parental history it 
afforded an opportunity for the operation of the alleged 
principle of telegony. The answer returned by nature 
to this particular interrogation was, as is so often the case, 
ambiguous. The colt was certainly striped, but the 
stripes were not like those of Mulatto’s first mate ; 
nor, on the other hand, did they entirely resemble 
those stripes often obscurely visible in ordinary foals. 
The evidence so far, though in no way conclusive, 
seeme:| to be capable of interpretation in accordance 
.—Matopo. 
with the theory of telegony. However, in the general 
introduction, after giving the results of a fresh com- 
parison with pure-bred foals, and adding an account 
of three additional experiments of the same kind, the 
author concludes that in no one of these cases is it 
possible to maintain that infection, saturation, or tele- 
gony has taken place. The results of further trials with 
rabbits, dogs and pigeons have also at present been 
uniformly negative. 
In the second paper, particulars are given of a further 
batch of hybrids sired by the same zebra stallion 
“Matopo” ; the dams being respectively a Shetland and 
an Iceland pony, an Irish mare and a cross-bred Clydes- 
dale mare. All presented points of interest, and the 
extent to which they resembled their sire or respective 
dams varied much, but it was found that even those 
which in several characters most distinctly suggested the 
zebra sire differed entirely from him in markings. 
NO. 1551, VOL. 60] 
According to Prof. Ewart, the markings of his hybrids 
accord fairly with those of the Somali zebra, which he 
regards as being the most ancestral in its colour-pattern 
of all recent Equidee 
If this is really the case—and it is difficult to find any 
weak spot in the author's cautious yet cogent line of 
argument—the hybrids in question supply one more good 
illustration of Darwin’s principle that the crossing of 
distinct species frequently leads to reversion. It may 
here be remarked that precisely the same conclusion 
seems to follow from the elaborate experiments in the 
hybridisation of insects recently conducted at Ziirich by 
Dr. M. Standfuss. The latter investigator, it is true, 
speaks only of the “prepotency of the phylogenetically 
older” of the two parent species ; but, while he refrains 
from actually using the term “reversion” with regard to 
his hybrids, he records the fact that some of them 
exhibit characters which must have belonged to an 
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Fic. 4.—Romulus. 
ancestor of one of the parent species, though absent 
from the parents themselves. 
With regard to the zebra hybrids now under dis- 
cussion, the most striking point of difference in marking 
between “Romulus” and the other cross-bred foals on the 
one hand, and their common sire ‘‘ Matopo” on the other, 
is the multiplication of stripes in the former, and the 
tendency to the production of a gridiron pattern over 
the rump. The last-named of these characters re- 
sembles the condition seen in the mountain zebra, an 
earlier form, according to Prof. Ewart, than the Burchell 
group, while the former point recalls the still more 
ancestral pattern of the Somali zebra. In the Shetland 
pony’s hybrid, ‘“ Norette,” the pattern over the hind- 
quarters from the first resembled that of the Somali 
zebra ; in the other hybrids, the markings of the same 
region, indeterminate at first, finally settled down into a 
form suggestive rather of the less remote stage marked 
