Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 57.djvu/143

Rh 3. Five Icelandic ponies were mated with Matopo, of whom one produced, in 1897, a dark-colored hybrid. The dam, Tundra, was a yellow and white skewbald which had previously produced a light bay foal to a stallion of its own breed. Her third foal (1898) was fathered by a bay Shetland pony, and in coloration closely resembled its dam. There was no hint of infection in this case. This year Professor Ewart has bred from this mare, by Matopo, a zebra-hybrid of a creamy-fawn color, and so primitive in its markings that he believes it to stand in much the same relation to horses, zebras, and asses as the blue-rock does to the various breeds of pigeons (see illustration).



4. Two Irish mares, both bays, produced hybrids by Matopo, and subsequently bore pure-bred foals. One of the latter was by a thoroughbred horse, the other by a hackney pony. The foals were without stripes, and showed no kind of indication that their mother had ever been mated with a zebra.

5. Although Professor Ewart experimented with seven English thoroughbred mares and an Arab, he only succeeded in one case. The mare produced twin hybrids, one of which unfortunately died immediately after birth. This summer the same mare has produced a foal to a thoroughbred chestnut; "neither in make, color, nor action" does it in any way resemble a zebra or a zebra-hybrid.

6. A bay mare which had been in foal to Matopo for some months