5o 4 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



scribed in their grayer color and smaller hoofs approximate to the wild 

 asses of Africa, especially to those of Somaliland, whilst it is main- 

 tained that in their cry, as well as in their color, the kiang and dzeggetai 

 come closer to the horse, whose next neighbors they are. 



Passing to Africa, we find the ass of Nubia and Abyssinia showing a 

 shoulder stripe, and frequently with very strongly defined narrow 

 stripes on the legs, the ears being longer than those of the onager. 

 But in closer proximity to southwestern Asia comes the Somali ass, 

 which differs from those of Nubia and Abyssinia by being grayer in 

 color, by the entire absence of shoulder stripes and by smaller ears, in 

 all which characteristics it comes closer to its neighbors on the Asiatic 

 side than it does to its relations in Abyssinia and Nubia. 



Next we meet the zebras. First comes the magnificent Grevy zebra 

 of Somaliland, Shoa and British East Africa. It is completely striped 

 down to its hoofs, but the coloration of the specimens from Shoa 

 differs from that of those from Somaliland, and from those of British 

 East Africa. The Grevy zebra has its hoofs rounded in front like 

 those of a horse, but its ears are more like its neighbors, the asses, than 

 those of any other zebra. 



In the region north of the river Tana the Burchelline group of 

 zebras overlaps the Grevy, and though it differs essentially in form, 

 habits and shape of its hoofs from the Grevy, some of those in the 

 neighborhood of Lake Barringo show gridiron markings on the croup 

 like those on the Grevy zebra, whilst, like the latter, they also possess 

 functional premolars. 



All the zebras of the equatorial regions are striped to the hoofs, but 

 when we reach the Transvaal, the Burchelline zebra, known as Chap- 

 man's, is divesting itself of stripes on its legs, whilst the ground color 

 is getting less white and the stripes less black. Farther south the true 

 Burchell zebra of the Orange Eiver has completely lost the stripes on 

 its legs and under surface, its general coloring being a pale yellowish 

 brown, the stripes being dark brown or nearly black. South of the 

 Orange Eiver the now extinct quagga of Cape Colony had not only 

 begun to lose the stripes of its under part and on the hind quarters, 

 but in Daniell's specimen they only survived on the neck as far as the 

 withers, the animal having its upper surface bay and a tail like that 

 of a horse, whilst all specimens of quagga show a rounded hoof like 

 that of a horse. 



In the quagga of 30°-32° S. we have practically a bay horse cor- 

 responding to the bay Libyan horse of lat. 30°-32° N. 



But the production of such variations in color do not require great 

 differences in latitude. On the contrary, from a study of a series of 

 skins of zebras shot for me in British East Africa, each of which is 

 from a known locality and from a known altitude, there can be no 



