THE BIRTH OF A ZEBRA HYBRID. / 



Island of Rum^ a small island lying between the mainland 

 of Scotland and the Outer Hebrides. As far as is known, 

 fresh blood has only once been introduced during recent 

 times into the Island of Eum. This was in 1848^ when 

 the then proprietor of the island, the late Marquis of 

 Salisbury, sent to Rum a stallion belonging, it is believed, 

 to the characteristic West Highland strain. Mulatto's 

 dam came from the Long Island (Outer Hebrides), but 

 she belonged to the same breed as the sire. Like Mulatto 

 and all her ancestors, as far as they can be traced, the 

 dam was almost black, and, like the majority of this par- 

 ticular breed of ponies, her eyes were of a hazel colour — 

 not brown, as in the majority of horses. In Mulatto there 

 is only a faint indication of the characteristic hazel-coloured 

 iris. It is difficult to account for the existence of more or 

 less isolated troops of well-bred ponies in the Western 

 Highlands. The late Marquis of Salisbury believed that, 

 notwithstanding their colour, they had Eastern blood in 

 their veins. It has been suggested that they numbered 

 amongst their ancestors horses which escaped from the 

 ill-fated ships of the Spanish Armada. In support of this 

 belief it may be mentioned that an old tapestry in the 

 House of Lords (a representation of which appeared some 

 years ago in the Illustrated London News) indicates that 

 storms overtook the Spanish fleet at several points oii the 

 Western Islands. It may be more than a coincidence that 

 well-bred ponies were afterwards found on islands adjacent 

 to the storm areas — on islands and pai'ts of islands to which 

 the dismantled Armada ships might very well have drifted. 

 Further, the Mulatto breed of ponies resembles well-bred 

 black horses often met with in Spain at the present day. 

 Whatever the origin of the ponies in question, it is enough 

 that they belong to a distinct breed, and that probably 

 only once (in 1848) during many generations has fresh 

 blood been introduced into the isolated and somewhat inac- 

 cessible Island of Rum, from whence Mulatto's sire was 

 exported in 1888. As a proof of the isolation, or, in other 

 words, of in-breeding, crosses between Island of Rum 



