180 NATURE AND SPORT IN SOUTH AFRICA 



— recklessly destroyed by the short-sighted policy of 

 the skin-hunting Boers of the last generation. 



Only two specimens of the quagga have been 

 exhibited in the Regent's Park Gardens — one, a 

 female, in 1851, the other, a male, in 1858. This 

 last was presented by that enthusiastic collector. Sir 

 George Grey, then Governor of Cape Colony. The 

 animal was a familiar figure in the Gardens (I re- 

 member it well as a boy), and survived until 1872 

 or a little later. In 1872 some photographs of this 

 quagga (the only sun-pictures of a true quagga 

 extant) were taken by Mr. Frederick York, who 

 possesses five negatives — which, now that the animal 

 is extinct, may be termed priceless. Very unfortun- 

 ately, the Natural History Museum has no repre- 

 sentative stuffed specimen ; it possesses merely an 

 old and extremely battered skin, which has been 

 lately set up; so that, altogether, the world possesses 

 very little direct evidence of the existence of this 

 rare and now extinct creature, which forty or fifty 

 years ago roamed its native plains in unnumbered 

 thousands. 



