6 AFRICAN NATURE NOTES CHAP. 



supreme triumph of protective coloration in large 

 mammals, why had the quaggas of the Cape Colony 

 become dull brown, for they also lived on open 

 plains in strong sunlight, and needed protection 

 from the lions every bit as much as their congeners 

 of East Africa ? Moreover, I think all naturalists 

 and embryologists are agreed that Equus quagga 

 was the descendant of boldly striped ancestors. 



To my mind the loss of stripes in the quagga 

 was entirely due to the environment in which 

 this species had lived for long ages ; for on the 

 karoos of the Cape Colony everything is of one dull 

 brown colour, whether on hill or plain, and no 

 shade is to be found anywhere, for the whole 

 country is without trees. The air, too, is intensely 

 hot and dry, and the rainfall scanty. In these 

 semi-deserts of South-Western Africa, not only did 

 the quaggas lose their black stripes, but the elands 

 also lost the white stripes of their immediate 

 ancestors, whilst the blesboks had already lost 

 much of the white to be seen in the body colouring 

 of the bonteboks, from which they are descended, 

 and had become of a much duller colour generally. 

 In East Africa, however, the plains are surrounded 

 by well-wooded hills, which give some colour to the 

 landscape, whilst the rainfall every year is heavy. 

 If it is not the influence of their several environ- 

 ments which has brought about the differences 

 between the well-striped elands and zebras of East 

 Africa and their dull-coloured relatives that once 

 lived in the karoos of the Cape Colony, the theory 

 of protective coloration must be equally at fault, for 

 in spite of the fact that in both countries both races 

 of these animals have been hunted by lions from 

 time immemorial on open plains, and under precisely 

 similar conditions, they developed very different 

 schemes of coloration. 



The Barbary sheep, again, which inhabits the dry 



