54 ZEBRAS, QUAGGAS, AND ASSES 



quagga ; and it indicates in the case of the latter the meaning of the 

 change in pattern presented by the different local races as we pass from 

 Somaliland southwards to Cape Colony. In correlation with the 

 adoption of a life in the open, a new method of concealment by means 

 of shadow-counteraction was required, and was perfected by the toning 

 down of the stripes on the upper side and the suppression of those on 

 the hind-quarters, legs, and under-parts. 



The description by Sir Cornwallis Harris of the quagga, as he 

 knew it in 1837, runs as follows : 



" The adult male," he writes, " stands 4 feet 6 inches high at the 

 withers, and measures 8 feet 6 inches in extreme length. Form 

 compact. Barrel round. Limbs robust, clean, and sinewy. Head 

 light and bony, of a bay colour, covered on the forehead and temples 

 with longitudinal, and on the cheeks with narrow transverse stripes, 

 forming linear triangular figures, between the eye and mouth. Muzzle 

 black. Ears and tail strictly equine ; the latter white, and flowing 

 below the hocks. Crest very high, arched, and surmounted by a full 

 standing mane, which appears as though it had been hogged, and is 

 banded alternately brown and white. Colour of the neck and upper 

 parts of the body dark rufous brown, becoming gradually more fulvous, 

 and fading off to white behind and underneath. The upper portions 

 banded and brindled with dark brown stripes, stronger, broader, and 

 more regular on the neck, but gradually waxing fainter, until lost 

 behind the shoulders in spots and blotches. Dorsal line dark and 

 broad, widening over the crupper. Legs \vhite, with bare spots inside 

 above the knees. Female precisely similar." 



The quagga was originally known to the Boers of Cape Colony as 

 wilde esel, or wild ass, to distinguish it from the zebra, which they 

 named wilde paard, or wild horse. Later on it was, however, more 

 generally called by its Hottentot name quagga, or rather quacha (pro- 

 nounced qualia}, which refers to the two notes of its cry or neigh. 



In Gordon Cumming's time, about the year 1843, quaggas in- 

 habited the plains in the north of Cape Colony, and especially near 

 Colesberg, in large numbers. The Dutch colonists were, however, 

 busy in killing the game ; Gordon Cumming writing that, during his 

 stay on the flats adjoining Thebus Mountain, scarcely an hour elapsed 

 at morning, noon, or eve but the distant booming of a Dutchman's gun 

 saluted the ear. In time this led to the extermination of the species, 

 which appears to have been killed off between 1865 and 1870 in 

 Cape Colony, and probably between 1870 and 1873 m the Orange 

 River Colony. 



