The daily morning journal and courier., 1903-03-03

ponies well known in Persia to-day. The Persian horses cannot, then, have been the ancestors of the thoroughbred,
 though it is quite possible that their st.
 periority was due to their having a cross of thoroughbred blood, for alrea- dy by 800 B. c. Solomon imported horses from Egypt q Kings x), and ''sO for all the kings of Syria and for all the kings of the Hittites" Egypt could not breed horses, neither could she have
 got them from the Arabs, who bred none even a thousand years later. But she could and did get them from the Libyans. who from the dawn Of history are masters of the most famous horses. Cyrene sent the best horses to the games of Greece Pindar, Pyth. iv., etc.). It is noteworthy that it was in the same century as the founding of Cyrene that the four-horse chariot and the race horse were added to the Olym- pie events. The Phoenieian settlers at Carthage found the Libyans using these beautiful horses, and when they struck coins placed q horse or a horsehead on them as the badge of Libya, and used a similar type on their coins struck in Sicily, whither, doubtless, they carried the Libyan breed. This accounts for the extraordinary fame of the horses of Etna and Syracuse, and the famous steeds of Tarentum. It is now clear that the Arabs never owned a good horse until they had become masters of North Africa, and the Barbary horses, from which are sprung our own racing stock through Lord Godolpin's Barb.
 North Africa, therefore, and not Arabia or any other part of Asia is the original home of the thoroughbred.
 Now. though the pedigree of the cart-horse type can be traced to the coarse, thick-set little horses of Eu- rope and Asia, the wild ancestor Of the Barb is yet to seek, for Africa has no wild horse, such as tarpan or Prezeval- sky's, though she has an ass and four zebras, including the quaggs, now ex- tinct. Can the Barg be sprung wholly or in part from a zebra? Arab foals at birth constantly have zebra markings. sometimes retained when full grown, as by Professor Ewart's Arab lilly Fatima. Strabo, too, notices that the horses of the Libyan Garamantes have longer hoofs than any other horses. Profess sor Ewart's hybrids from BurehelIs ze- bra and various mares show the mark ings, not of a BurchelPs zebra. but of Somaliland zebra, from which it has been inferred that the remote ancestor of both Equus caballus and Burchell's zebra was striped like the Smaliland and mountain zebra. But is it neces-
 anp not hn Somaliland zebra stripes in the hybrid
 be due to the circumstance that the dam in each case had a certain amount of Barb blood in her, which was de- rived from either the Somaliland zebra or closely allied species? I have crossed a Muscovy drake with a com mon white duck, derived from the com mon wild duck, with the result that all the offspring are colored, and their col- oring resembles that of the mallard. No one would say that the hybrids show reversion to a remote common ancestor of both mallard and Muscovy, for it is obvious that the coloring is simply that of the white ducks imme- diate ancestors. Authorities like Cap tain Hayes have pointed out the great similarity in form between BurchelPst and the Sonaliland zebra to a well-bred horse, i. e., horse that has Barb blood; In him. He therefore suggested that the Barbary horse, from which he had; shown all the fine horses of &he world, have sprung, was derived either from the zebra or northern Africa, or, as is more likely, from some very closely al- lied species. now extinct, which, like Prezevalskys horse, may have had castors on it's hind legs like Equus ca ballus "-New York Evening Post.