ZEBRAS AND THEIR CHARACTERISTICS 173 



little below the shoulder, the legs being imstriped. 

 Cases often occur, however, in which the legs are 

 striped nearly down to the hoofs — though never so 

 perfectly as in the true zebra. When these leg- 

 stripings occur, naturalists sometimes refer to the 

 animal as Chapman's variety of Burchell's zebra — 

 Chapman having been the first person to bring 

 out skins thus marked. It may be doubted, how- 

 ever, whether Equus chapmani, as it is sometimes 

 called, can really be set up as a true variety. 



The habitat of Burchell's zebra has always been 

 far wider and less circumscribed than that of other 

 members of the Hippotigrine group. It is uncertain 

 whether these animals ever roamed south of the 

 Orange River; though from Paterso7i's Travels — 

 circa 1777 — there is strong presumptive evidence 

 that troops were then found just south of the 

 river. But in modern times the range may be 

 taken as extending from the Orange River to 

 Northern Equatorial Africa. In Central and East 

 Africa they are abundant, especially on the dry 

 plains about Masailand and the Kilimanjaro region, 

 and towards Uganda, where their habitat is almost 

 exactly identical with the high plains and park-like 

 plateaux of Southern Africa. In Northern and 

 Western Africa they seem to have been always 

 unknown. 



But although in East and South Central Africa 



