The daily morning journal and courier., 1899-06-02
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llshed, under the title 'The Penyculcl EXperiments,' an account, written bS Professor EWart, of his work so far a:
 1t has gone at present.
 At the Royal Institution Professor
 Ewart has delivered a course of three
 lectures on "Zebras and Zebra Hybrids,
 At the first of these he began by refer
 ring to the earliest records we possessed
 of the existence of zebras in historic
 times, and mentioned that the first ze-
 bra did not reach Europe till the year
 176O. The curious appearance of the ze-
 bra, and it's peculiarly striped body
 naturally awakened curiosity, and many | absurd statements were advanced by
 creduous writers as to their origin,
 By means of diagrams Professor Ewart
 traced the genealogical tree of the zebra,
 and pointed out the geographical distri-
 button of the fossil Equidae and reign
 once was made to the great family of
 Equidae, which comprised horses, asses
 and zebras. The earliest ancestor of the
 horse was a creature named Phenacolus,
 and in the United States National Mu-
 scum q specimen of this animal might be seen. It had five toes to each foot,
 and very small hrain The next in process of evolution was the hyracother- ium This possessed but three toes.
 Then came ephippus, creature which 1 began to have some resemblance to the | horse as We know him at the present
 day. Next came mesohlppus, next
 merychippus, next hipparion, and then | protohippus Ghe real ancestor of the
 equidae), and lastly equus.
 l J,, ;r,I loo T)rnflGcnp | confined his remarks almost entirely to
 the stripes of the zebra dwelling on their
 origin and probable uses. There could | be little doubt that the stripping of the | zebra was of great benefit to the animal | in enabling 1t to avoid detection. He | had tried many experiments on his own | zebras, and he was astonished to find | how difficult it was to recognize them even when quite close up to them. Even at a distance of five yards he had failed to distinguish the animals under certain circumstances. At ten yards the stripes would completely disappear. On one occasion he actually ran into zebra. because not only did the stripes prevent the animal from being observed, but it
 stood so still and breathed so quietly that 1t completely eluded observation. Any animal which had a uniform color was much more likely to be seen than
 one with stripings or spots on its coat. He had made some experiments with q bay pony. and he found that when he put on the animal an arrangement of ribbons. to initiate the stripe of the Ze- bra. it was much less easily distin- guished than in the ordinary natural conditions The subject of protective coloration was very large one, and he could only touch on few special points He once let loose some forty to fifty tame rabbits in a field where there were a great many wild ones of a brown col- or In short time the white ones had disappeared, owing, no doubt to their tameness, and their conspicuous cobra tion There were, of course, white wild rabbits in England, but nature, as if to compensate for their color had endowed them with special powers of self-preser- vation. Many instances were on record in which hunttrs have been deceived by natural objects, and have fired at these under the impression that they were an-
 mals. The lecturer proceeded to dis cuss the question as to why horses have lost their stripes. At one time horses were banded, and as the Zebras had re- tained their stripes it was interesting to know why horses had lost them. It was all question of adaptation to surround ings and as stripes became of no use to the horse they rapidly dis isappeared.
 Professor Ewart brought to a close his course of lectures on zebras and zebra hybrids by giving an account of the ex- periments that have been conducted both by himself and by others on the breed- ing of zebra hybrids.
 These hybrids were divided into two classes: d) Zebra ass hybrds and (2) zebra -horse hyhrds. At Penycuick Pro lessor Ewart had mated various kinds of zebra with various horses and ponies, and the crossings thus obtained threw much light on the complicated questions of reverson, variation, telegony, etc. The sire was in all cases zebra and the dam a horse or a pony and the gen eral rule was that the hybrid had more of the characteristics of the father than of the mother. In cases where zebra sire was mated with a thoroughbred horse the offspring was considerable improvement on the father The mark ings on the zebra hybrids offered many points of interest to the student Of breeding, and the pictures thrown on the screen enabled the audience to see the character of the offspring and to note whether they took more after one of their parents than the other.
 Dealing with the possible use of ze- bras and zebra hybrids from a practical point of view. Professor Ewart did not hold out much hope of their proving of much value to mankind. It was impos- sible to eradicate from the zebra nature that fear of its natural enemy the lion, which was so imbued in it's system. Some of Professor Ewart's Zebras and zebra hybrids were ordinarily of the most docile nature but at times sud- den fear would overcome them. and they would become quite unmanageable. No matter whether the animal were in har- ness or not when this it of fear seized 1t it would leap over a hedge or over a wall and it would be some time before 1t recovered its equanimity. Professor Ewart referred to the team of zebras