THE TRUE QUAGGA 



175 



this book represents the Chott Tinsilt, a salt 

 lake on the route to the Sahara : seen in the 

 early morning, with the sunlight on its blue 

 waters and the purple mountains behind, it is 

 a sight to be remembered. 



The pace of the quagga was said to be fleet, 

 though laboured : wounded animals bit and kicked 

 severely and even inflicted fatal injuries on 

 incautious hunters. According to Sir John 

 Barrow it was often taken alive by lassoing, 

 just as the Boers of to-day take Burchell's zebra 

 with the fangstock or noosed stick. 



Extending as far south as the Albany 

 district in Cape Colony, the range of the quagga 

 was limited to the north by the Vaal River, 

 beyond which it was replaced by Burchell's 

 zebra, its faithful comrade the black wildebeest 

 being similarly replaced by the blue wildebeest. 

 The quagga seems to have shown some 

 tendency to variation in the different portions 

 of its habitat, some individuals having the ground 

 colour of the head, neck, and chest chocolate 

 brown, while in others it was chestnut, and 

 portions of the example preserved at Vienna are 

 creamy buff. In 1817 Dr. Burchell presented the 

 skin of a young quagga to the British Museum, 

 and this specimen was thought so remarkable that 

 Hamilton Smith considered it a new species, 

 under the name of " Isabella quagga," an error 



