THE GREW ZEBRA 701 



quagga is equally abundant in their domain and shares much 

 of the same territory as the former. It is commonly as- 

 sumed that the Grevy zebra occurs on the plains of Shoa, in 

 the vicinity of Addis Abbaba, the capital of Abyssinia, but 

 this is by no means the case. The Grevy zebra is confined 

 to the Rift Valley of Abyssinia, from Lake Zwai south- 

 ward, and is an inhabitant of low desert or semiarid 

 country, very different in character from the cool, moist 

 Abyssinian highlands of the capital. It is doubtless from 

 the northern extremity of the range, in the vicinity of 

 Lake Zwai, that the specimens donated by Menelik to 

 foreign rulers have come. At the present time the Grevy 

 zebra is not found as far north as that district, but its 

 absence there may be due to recent extermination by the 

 Abyssinians consequent upon the extensive introduction 

 of firearms in the country. Specimens from the western 

 frontier of Somaliland have been separated by Pocock as 

 a race, owing to the dark stripes being seal-brown rather 

 than black. Such color differences, however, are due merely 

 to the fading effect of the intense desert light and heat. 

 The specimens with which the Somaliland ones were com- 

 pared were zoological-garden specimens, obtained by dona- 

 tions originally from Emperor Menelik. The pure white 

 character of their light stripes and the blackness of the 

 dark stripes is due chiefly to the temperate climate in 

 which they were living. There is practically no difference 

 in environment and very little in geographical position to 

 warrant a race in southeastern Abyssinia. In this connec- 

 tion it may be stated that specimens from British East 

 Africa are quite identical in shade of coloration of both the 

 dark and the light stripes to those from Somaliland. Mat- 

 schie, some years previous to Pocock's description of berber- 

 ensis, gave the name faurei to a specimen living at the 

 Zoological Gardens of Paris which had been sent by Menelik 

 as a gift to President Faure of France. The name was 

 based on a photograph of the specimen which gave it the 

 appearance of having a white tail tuft, the character by 

 which Matschie distinguished his race. The specimen in 

 question, however, has the tail tuft normal in color, that is, 

 white on the upper side or outside as it hangs down and 

 black on the inner or lower side. The black inner side of 



