ZEBRAS AND QUAGGAS 193 



race, when seen at a distance, looks like a black 

 pony. He adds that " Gravy's zebra seems to 

 prefer undulating, rocky, bush-country to any other. 

 It is invariably seen in small troops often or twelve 

 individuals. The older males are generally covered 

 with scars, showing them to be very pugnacious. 

 While hunting through the dense bush in localities 

 where they are known to be, they are soon found, 

 as they are very noisy." They are commoner in 

 the Ogaden district of Western Somaliland, but of 

 late years have been greatly reduced in numbers. 



Colonel Swayne,^ after mentioning that these 

 zebras are found in Somaliland on stony country, 

 covered with scattered bush, and intersected with 

 ravines, at an elevation of about 2500 feet, states 

 that those which he saw "were met with in small 

 droves of about half-a-dozen, on low plateaux covered 

 with scattered thorn-bush and durr orrass, the soil 

 being powdery, and red in colour, with an occasional 

 outcrop of rocks. In such country they are easy 

 to stalk, and I should never have fired at them for 

 sport alone. I saw none in the open flats of the 

 Webbe valley, and they never come nearly so far 

 north as the open grass-plains of the Haud ; Durhi, 

 south of Fafan, being, I think, their northern limit. 

 The young have longer coats, and the stripes are 

 rather lighter brown, turning later on to a deep 

 chocolate, which is nearly black in adult animals." 



^ Seventeen Trips through Somaliland^ London, igoo, p. 321, 



N 



