GENERAL INTRODUCTION. XV 



wme ; " and, though it maj^ take longer to break zebra 

 hybrids than horses, they will, I believe, be more amen- 

 able than ordinary mules, and, if one may judge from a 

 single case, infinitely more easily managed than zebra-ass 

 hybrids. I may here mention that the figures illustrating 

 the papers give a very imperfect idea of Romulus and the 

 other hybrids. They are generally considered more at- 

 tractive than their respective dams, and handsomer than 

 their gaily painted wild sire. 



Remus, the bay Irish mare's hybrid, is, though ouly a 

 yearling, already taller than Romulus. Notwithstanding 

 the longish head and upright mane, he is in many ways 

 very like his dam. The body colour is bay ; the stripes, 

 which are abundant and pronounced, and, except on the 

 forehead, arranged as in Romulus, are of a dark brown 

 colour. Before completing his first year he had formed 

 for himself a small herd of fillies, which he guards 

 jealously from all intruders. As a foal his curiosity was 

 so great that if I knelt down and looked at a particular 

 tuft of grass he came up, and with lowered head gazed 

 steadfastly in the same direction. 



Brenda, though out of a larger mare, is smaller than 

 Remus, more heavily built, and much lighter in colour. 

 With the exception of her unusually long mule-like ears 

 and low withers, she is more a liorse than a zebra, in 

 gait and disposition as well as in form. Heckla, the 

 offspring of a yellow and white Iceland pony, has from 

 the first been dark in colour, and but faintly striped on 

 the neck and over the hind quarters. Apart from her 

 stripes, mule-like ears and tail, she is not unlike a pony. 

 Strangely enough she steps high like a hackney, though 

 her dam almost invariably moves like a pacer. Norette, 

 the offspring of a small black Shetland pony, is extremely 

 zebra-like throughout. In. the form of the head, neck, 

 and hind quarters she is remarkably like a typical 

 Burchell's zebra I saw recently, and she sometimes 

 reminds me forcibly of some of the photographs of the 

 lost quagga. During the winter Norette's mane was 

 long and hanging to both sides, as well as freely over her 



