176 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS 



afterwards corrected by Dr. Gray. Darwin, in 

 his "Origin of Species," mentions a figure of a 

 quagga, in which the legs (usually pure white) 

 were distinctly barred above the hocks. There is, 

 however, very little material left on which to base 

 any conclusions regarding the variations of Equus 

 quagga. Careful examination of several museum 

 specimens has, however, convinced me that the 

 mane of the female quagga was longer than that 

 of the male. 



During the last ten years it has become 

 the fashion amongst naturalists to describe 

 the quagga as little more than an extreme 

 southern variety of Burchell's zebra. They 

 point out that beyond the Vaal River the quagga 

 was replaced by a subspecies of burchellii which 

 in its white legs and abdomen approximated to 

 the half-striped condition of the quagga. This 

 variety of zebra is itself almost, if not quite, 

 extinct : one, however, is preserved in the Derby 

 Museum at Liverpool, and I have had the good 

 fortune to see and photograph a young btirchellii 

 in the Amsterdam Zoo having the legs almost 

 free from stripes. Intermediate vai-ieties between 

 the partially and the fully striped condition may 

 be seen in the menageries at Antwerp and Berlin. 

 These facts notwithstanding the quagga is a per- 

 fectly distinct species, recognisable from burchellii, 

 as I have recently found, by differences in the skull. 



