QUEEN VICTORIA’S GIFTS 
GREVY’S ZEBRA 
This splendid zebra, the very culmination of zebras, 
is one of the most striking exhibits in the Regent’s Park. 
It is, too, one of the chief novelties which recent events 
have enabled the society to add to their menagerie. So 
lately as 1899 the first two examples were procured 
through her late Majesty Queen Victoria, who received 
them as a gift from the Emperor Menelik of Abyssinia. 
With her customary liberality, the Queen placed these 
horses in the Zoological Gardens for exhibition to the 
public. The zebra had, however, been known to us 
before that date. In 1882 the first specimen now in 
Europe was sent by the same Emperor to M. Grévy, late 
President of the French Republic, and the beast was 
described as new to science by the late Alphonse Milne- 
Edwards. It seems, however, that the fellow explorer 
with Speke, Colonel Grant, had seen and preserved an 
example of the same zebra so long ago as 1860 ; but he 
only described it later, in fact not until 1883. So 
much for the history of this the king of zebras. Equus 
grevyt can be readily distinguished from the other 
zebras, all of which, as every one knows, are purely 
African in their range, by a number of salient characters. 
It is a larger beast, and especially has a large head and 
ears, the latter being particularly hairy. The black and 
white bands are very definitely black and white as 
the variety of Burchell’s zebra known as Equus Chap- 
mannt. In other zebras there is a tendency to dulness 
in the black, which occasionally is even brown. The 
closeness of the stripes and their arrangement may be 
seen to differ from the mountain zebra, which perhaps 
comes nearest in striping. But this can be seen in a 
shorter time than it will take to write a description. 
It is probable, in fact, that Grevy’s zebra is much more 
distinct from all other zebras, including the quagga, 
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