Cheryl Hayward, age 9, of Honeoye Falls, New York, for her question:

How did the zebra get his name?

This handsome fellow would look Just fine among the gaily colored horses on a carousel. But this would never do. The carousel horses are painted wood and the zebra is very much alive. That frisky fellow refuses to be ordered around and around.

The zebra's home is in Africa and the people who live there gave him his name long ages ago. They have forgotten who named him and how long he has been called a zebra. They also have forgotten what his name was supposed to mean. Word experts have tried to trace back the story and find out    but nobody has found the answer. The word experts, however, have discovered which African language supplied his name.

Africa is a whopping big continent of many different lands inhabited by many different peoples. Egypt, Lybia and Algeria are along the northern shores, facing the Mediterranean Sea. These countries are very, very old and we know a lot about their ancient history. In the past, these people did not know much about the. Africans who lived far down in the south. This is because nature created a wide barrier that stretches almost all the way across the center of Africa. It is the vast, sandy Sahara desert. In olden days, very few travelers crossed the desert to visit the southlands.

But in Bible Days, there was a well known country south of Egypt. It was called the Land of Sheba and long ago its queen paid a stately visit to King David of Israel. Later this land was called Abyssinia. The ancient creeks called it Ethiopia, meaning the "land of the people with sun burned faces." It is a lovely land of peaks and wooded hills, deep lush valleys and stretches of sunny desert.

The scattered people of Ethiopia use about 40 different languages and many of them know English. Of course, they need one special language of their own so that all of them can understand each other. And they have one. This official language of Ethiopia is called Amharic. It is a lot like the language used in Bible Days by King David. The zebra was given an Amharic name, maybe long before this time. At any rate, it was too long ago for anyone to figure out what his name meant.

Parts of Ethiopia are still wide open places where African animals roam free. There are lions and leopards, skyscraper giraffes and even herds of wild elephants. And there are herds of wild zebras. As you know, those frisky little horses are very attractive, and they were in ancient days, too. Naturally they had to be given a name and the people of Ethiopia called them zebras    but nobody knows why.

Herds of handsome zebras still gallop around Africa in parts of Ethiopia and far south of the big, sandy desert. But there were many, many more of them in ancient days. there are donkey sized horses with stiff, short manes, frisky hooves and stringy tails. And as everybody knows, they wear eye catching coats of dark and light stripes. Experts tell us that their ancestors had just a few dark stripes on their light buff coats. So the zebra is basically a light animal with dark stripes.