18 THE PENYCUIK EXPERIMENTS. 



and third foals of Lord Morton's mare, be still more 

 banded, or even provided witli a fraction of the bands 

 seen in the photograph, a very good case will have been 

 made out for telegony. 



It is still impossible to say what colours the hybrid will 

 eventually assume, but I believe a number of the bands 

 will all but disappear, and that the dark stripes will be 

 separated from each other by bay or dun-coloured spaces. 

 It is quite possible that hybrids bred from light-coloured 

 mares may retain a light body colour and, even when full- 

 grown, have the stripes as distinct as a zebra. 



Before leaving the hybrid I may point out that its 

 existence raises a number of interesting questions. In 

 1808 Frederic Cuvier published in the Annals cite Museum 

 d'Uisloirc NatureUe* a note on the mating of an Arab 

 horse with a zebra mare which had previously bred with a 

 male donkey. Unfortunately the mare died some months 

 before the period of gestation was completed. Since then 

 several hybrids have been bred between zebra mares and 

 ponies, but apparently a hybrid Ijetween a pony mare and 

 any of the members of the large BurchelU group of zebras 

 has not hitherto been obtained. Mules, i. e. hybrids 

 between a jackass and mares, are alike common and 

 valuable ; while hinnies, i. e. hybrids between a ponj' and 

 a she-ass, are rare in England, but comparatively common 

 in Ireland. While hybrids between ponies and zebra 

 mares may not prove specially useful, hybrids between a 

 zebra stallion and ordinary mares (what some would call 

 zebra mules) may have a great future before them. Cap- 

 tain Lugard, who has done splendid pioneer work, more 

 especially in East Africa, recommended some years ago 

 "that an attempt should be made to obtain zebra mules 

 by horse or donkey mares," because he believed such 

 mules " would be found excessively hardy, and impei-- 

 vious to the fly [the dreaded tsetse fly] and to climatic 

 diseases." 



* Vol. ii, p. 237. 



