COMMON ZEBRA OR BONTE-QUAGGA 689 



viously each is a "law unto itself." Not only does the 

 coloration of the quagga zebras emphasize this point, but 

 it goes much further toward breaking down our general 

 theories by responding very diversely in color changes over 

 the northern and southern parts of its range, or, in other 

 words, the changes we find in effect in one part of the range 

 cannot be used as a clew to what may be expected to occur 

 over other parts of the range. 



A freak or abnormally colored specimen of the highland 

 quagga zebra has been collected near Lake Nakuru, British 

 East Africa, by G. H. Goldfinch and described recently as 

 a new race, goldfi7ichi, by Ridgway. This specimen has a 

 peculiar large, irregular white blotch across the middle of 

 the back which is divided on the midline by the dark dorsal 

 stripe. Two other similar specimens have been seen at the 

 same spot which are, without doubt, blood relatives of the 

 type. Specimens of this sort have no standing in nature 

 as a race, but merely represent abnormal individuals. 

 Colonel Delme-Radcliffe records, in the proceedings of the 

 Zoological Society of London for 1905, a zebra observed by 

 him near Rushenyi, Uganda, which was much more ex- 

 tensively white, the stripes being evident only on the neck 

 and the hind quarters, the rest of the body being quite 

 albinistic. This specimen was associated with a large 

 herd of normally colored zebras. An albino zebra is also 

 recorded by Oscar Neumann from Manyara Lake in the 

 Rift Valley of German East Africa. Albinism has also 

 been observed by Percival among Grevy zebra in the vicin- 

 ity of the Lorian swamp. 



The highland quagga is distinguishable from the coast 

 and the northern desert forms by only average characters 

 or slight differences. From bohmi, the race occupying the 

 low coast lands, it is distinguishable by the smaller body 

 size, the somewhat narrower stripes on the hind quarters, 

 and by the whiter color of the light stripes which seldom 

 show any buffy suffusion. The Northern Guaso Nyiro 

 desert race, ctminghamei, differs from granti by smaller 

 body size much as granti does from bohmi but has better 

 marked color differences, the dark stripes being quite brown- 

 ish, bistre or seal-brown, instead of black. The average 

 length of male skulls in granti is 20 inches as against 19 



