172 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS 



with narrower white ones ; these markings began 

 to fade at the withers, but were continued more or 

 less indistinctly as far as the haunches, which bore 

 a few indefinite dark lines and spots. The up- 

 standing- mane was banded with brown and 

 white : the tail reached to the hocks, and was 

 pure white without any admixture of brown. 

 The iris was orange brown in Lord Derby's 

 female quagga, as figured from life by Waterhouse 

 Hawkins, 



The Quagga was first mentioned by Tachard 

 about the middle of the seventeenth century, 

 under the name of '* wilde esel " (wild ass), though 

 the absurd creature he describes, blazing with 

 tints of pyrotechnic brilliance, has little resem- 

 blance either to the original or to anything else. 

 Some years later Dr. Allamand published a 

 description received from Col. Gordon of a 

 quagga foal : this account being reprinted by 

 Buffon. Gordon's description was accompanied 

 by a sketch, and to him rightly belongs the 

 credit of introducing the animal to the notice 

 of scientific Europe. Edwards supposed the 

 quagga to be the female of the mountain 

 zebra, but this error was corrected by Dr. 

 Sparrman towards the end of the eighteenth 

 century. The doctor further states, in his book 

 of travels, that the quagga was sometimes 

 kept alive by the colonists to protect their flocks 



