246 THE QUAGGA 



E. hurr/ielli scloi/s/\ have been proposed for wh;it are at umst 

 local races. But it is at present far from certain whether their 

 distribution favours this subdivision. 



The Quagga was more striped than is sometimes represented in 

 illustrations. According to Dr. JSToack, from whose paper ^ upon 

 the animal I quote here, the transverse stripes reached back as far 

 as the l_)uttocks ; they w^re. however, completely aljsent from the 

 legs. The animal is, as every one knows, probabh' comytletely 

 extinct. In the year 1836 it was still abundant; in 1864 the 

 last specimen ever exhibited was received l>y the Zoological 

 Society. Mr. W. L. Sclater thinks tliat it may have survived in 

 the Orange River Colony as late as 18 78, but admits that any 

 certainty is difficult, as it was frequently confounded by the Boers 

 with Ijurchell's Zel)ra. Its rarity is emphasised l)y the fact that 

 it is not mentioned in the recent work of that most skilful of 

 hunters, Mr. F. Sehius. (laudry places the Quagga nearest of all 

 living Ei[uidae t(» the Hipparion gracile of Pikermi. 



Fossil Equidae. — The existing Equidae all l)elong to the 

 genus Eqinis, thougli there are some who would ((piite lumecessarily) 

 divide off the Zebras as a genus Hippoti(jris. The genus Equus 

 itself goes l)ack in time to the Pliocene, during which epoch there 

 lived in India ]^. siv((Iensis, the same species according to some 

 with the E\ stenonis of Em'ope. None of these species, Old World 

 or New, are easily to l)e separated from E. cahallus. But many 

 names have been given to them. It is of course perfectly con- 

 ceivable that they may have differed among themselves as much 

 as do the existing Zebras and Asses, the separation of which would 

 l)e hardly possible did we know their bones only. There are, 

 however, extinct genera, undoubtedly rekited so closely to Equus 

 as to be placed in the same family, tliough clearly separaljle as 

 genera. Hipparion is one of these genera ; its remains are known 

 from Europe, Asia, and North Africa, from beds of Miocene and 

 Pliocene times. A large number of different species have l)een 

 descrilied. It was a beast of about the size of a Zebra. The 

 principal characters are that each foot has three toes, of which, 

 however, the two side ones are smaller than the central toe. 

 There is a marked round fossa on the maxillary bone, a feature 

 shared hj the South American Onohipqridiwm} The pattern of 



' "D;is Quagga," Zool. Garten, 1893, p. 289. 



- Of this Hor.se, remains have been lately discovered (see Lonnberg, Proc. Zool. 



