The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-10-24
ADOPTION TESTS
 OF NEW ANIMALS Interesting Experiments With < ZebruIa Under Way CAMELS BROUGHT HERE Angora Goats Have Taken Kindly To American Haunts and Amer
 ican Ways-Alpaca May
 Be Tried Soon.
BY FREDERIC j. HAsKIN.

BY FREDERIC J. HASKIN.
 Capt. Ronald Amnnusens recently an- nounced plan to use Polar bears. as draught animals in attempting to reach tho North Pole in 1910 is only another proof of twentieth century mans de- termination to further divert the strength of the lower animals to his own use. Captain Amundsens four great bears are now being broken for the work by Hagen beck the famous animal trainer. The civilized nations in general and the United States in particular have in the past century made many valuable in- vestigations in the animal world. The most recent and interesting work of this nation is that of producing a new hybrid animal known as the zebrula, a cross be- tween a horse and a zebra. The experi- ment is considered one of the greatest of modern times, as the zebrula is be- lieved to have all the best qualities of both horse and zebra, and to be larger and stronger and more capable of heavy work than the mule. The Amer ican experiment is being conducted at the government station at Bethesda, near Washington, the beautiful zebra that King Menelik sent the President having been sent out there from the zoo.
 Three mares have been successfully bred to Menelik's s zebra, two of the Percheron type and the third a driving mare of patrieian Loudon county, Virginia, stock This Virginia mare is none other than Baby" who was driven for some time by Superintendent Baker of the zoo, and is widely known to Washington folk Baby" is just now the object of much care and solcitude on the part of the attendants at the experiment station, for about Decemper 1 she is expected to present to the American government its first zebrula, and so offer the nation a substitute for the mule.
 The zebrula has, to a small extent, been known abroad for 10 or F years The first one successfully bred in Eng- land was in 1896. Now Lord Rothschid has a team of these as well as one of ful-blooded zebras. Carl Hagenbeck has DeeH SuCCcSSlul Will GlOSStS DctWCSi tho Chapman zebra and pony-built mares, conducting an experiment station at his zoo near Hamburg, and Baron de Parana of Brazil has also been successful in securing a good zebrula. The animals heretofore used have chiefly been Chap mans or Burchells zebras, which are not much larger than donkey. The Amer ican experiment will prove better be- cause the Somalland zebra chosen is of vastly larger build. That the efficiency of the zebrula has been proved is shown in d report of Consul General Guenther four years ago, when stationed in Frank fort, Germany. He cited instances where it had been successfully tried by the In dian government in army transport work.
 The zebrula which Baby" is expected to present to the government will, when grown, have the characteristics and ap- pearance of both horse and zebra, with striking marks not so deeply defined as on the father and his kin of the African wilds and will be larger than the aver age mule. The ears will be three inches longer than q mules ears and the head three feet long. It is an old saying In
 
 the south that a good sized mule must have a head and ears longer than a flour barrel, and if the comparative statistics of mule and zebrula are reliable. the ze- brula will easily stand the test with ear tips well over the measure. Old Abyssin- ian traditions declare that King Menelik is d direct descendant of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, and if this be true 1t is not a hard matter to find the source of that wisdom which led to the selection of this valuable gift to the sponsible for new draught animal in a land of commercial enterprise.
 The United States, with Congress ever clinging to her skirts in half-voiced pro- test against too great expenditures, has nevertheless Vmade some most remark able strides in the development of her domestic animals. Columbus records In his diary that he found among the h. dians dogs that did not bark" wolves, perhaps, that had been brought from Western America. These were the only domestic animals then on this continent. Horses and hogs came in the train of of Cortez to later run wild and become progenitors of small and hardy herds, and the bloodhounds he brought to guard his Indian slaves were followed centuries later by the more tractable animals of the Spanish, English and French settlers. Within the three centuries of the nation s existence almost every other useful anil nal has been brought over and improved upon until the United States ranks high in all branches of animal industry. More than once interesting attempts to induce old World beasts of burden to help solve Amerlca's problems of agriculture and transportation have been tried.
 One of the most interesting of these was the introduction of camels by the war department in 1856 to be used for military and postal work in the desert countries of the southwest. Jefferson Davis, then Secretary of War, was the prime mover in the novel scheme. trough his efforts an appropriation of $s00O0 for this purpose was secured from Congress on March 3, 1855, and in May Maj. Henry c. Wayne of the army and Lieutenant D. D. Porter of the navy were sent to buy the animals The men studied the camels In the zoos of England. France and Germany. and interviewed native and foreign army men in Salonica, Damascus, Palmyra, Kurdistan and Cairo