QUAGGA 



55 



The range of the quagga seems to have been very circumscribed, 

 and included Cape Colony, westward of the Kei river, certain parts of 

 Griqualand West, and the plains of the Orange River Colony ; but it 

 is possible that the species may have occasionally wandered as far as 

 the southern border of Bechuanaland. In Cape Colony it probably 

 ranged almost to the verge of the Indian Ocean, wherever open 

 country offered suitable feeding-grounds. 



Fig. 19.— The Quagga. 



The quagga was essentially a denizen of the open plains, where it 

 associated in large troops. Occasionally, however, it seems to have 

 wandered into the hills, since Barrow, in his Travels, writes as 

 follows : " The hills that surrounded the plain of Geel-bek [a small 

 river to the south-west of the Great Karoo] were composed of a dark 

 purple-coloured slate ; and among these were seen prancing a small 

 herd of that beautifully marked animal the zebra, and a great number 

 of another species of wild horse, known in the colony by the Hottentot 



