[Three Hundred Animals Contents]
IS the most elegant quadruped in nature. He is striped all over with a most pleasing regularity; in form he resembles the mule, being smaller than the horse and bigger than the ass. The hair of his skin is uncommonly smooth, and he looks at a distance as an animal whom some fanciful hand has surrounded with ribbands of pure white and jet black. He is, however, very ferocious and untractable, and is a native of Africa. Were the Zebra accustomed to our climate, there is little doubt but he might be soon domesticated. The black cross which the ass bears on his back and shoulders seems to prove an ancient affinity with these two classes, yet they refuse to produce together, and nature seems to have drawn between them an impassable line of demarcation. This animal feeds in the same manner as the horse, ass, and mule; and seems to delight in having clean straw and dried leaves to sleep upon.
