Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 6 (1902).djvu/432

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366
THE ZOOLOGIST.

of English-bred animals, which only terminated on the death of the last of them in 1894. One of the first of this series is figured in Sir Cornwallis Harris's work on the game of South Africa, so that those of us who remember the last survivors of this large family will realise that the London Giraffes constituted a link between the present day and the reign of William IV., since Harris set out on the shooting tour which eventually furnished material for his book as long ago as 1836. It may not perhaps be generally known that the Northern Giraffe has repeatedly bred in the Antwerp Zoological Gardens, births having occurred in 1871, 1873, 1875, 1876, and 1878. The last survivor of this fine series is still living, and carries her twenty-three years with the elasticity of youth. The young pair of Giraffes recently sent to Antwerp from the Soudan are much darker in coat than this European-bred female. The third horn of the eighteen-month-old male is about one inch long; the horns of the young female bear well-developed tufts of drooping hair not seen in either of the other two animals.

Equus zebra (Mountain Zebra).—The voice of this animal is a curious whistling metallic neigh. Young foals of this species are much rougher in coat than their parents, and the stripes are brownish rather than black; a Mountain Zebra foal in the Jardin des Plantes collection, at about ten months old, was still quite rough in coat. The stripes on the neck, mane, and legs were black, and those on the body were nearly all brown. The mother was very suspicious of all visitors, and continually endeavoured to interpose herself between her young one and any spectators, although the foal was already nearly as big as herself.

E. burchelli (Burchell's Zebra).—Most naturalists will be aware that the original type of this animal as described by Burchell had the legs unstriped, or at most with but few markings. The practical extermination of this form, however, has unfortunately now been compassed, so that almost all the Zebras of this species now in zoological gardens have the legs regularly banded, often right down to the hoofs. Occasionally, however, one meets with the rarer form, of which I have examined a specimen. As was seen from the rough coat, this animal was quite young. A remarkable point was that the animal stated to be its mother had