516 Mr. R. I. Pocock on the 



LX. — Notes on the Quagga and BurchelVs Zebra in the 

 Paris Museum. By R. I. PocoCK, Superintendent of the 

 Zoological Society's Gardens, London. 



In the * Bulletin du Museum d'Histoire naturelle/ pp. 449- 

 452 (1906), Dr. Trouessart has given an account, illustrated 

 by two admirable photogravures, of a quagga and a Burchell's 

 zebra preserved in the Paris Museum. The quagga especially 

 proves to be a specimen of considerable systematic import- 

 ance ; and since Dr. Trouessart omits to mention one or 

 two points of interest connected with it, and makes some 

 statements which are contrary to fact, no apology is needed 

 for supplementing his communication with the following 

 comments. 



In a paper* on the Cape Colony quaggas, with which 

 Dr. Trouessart does not appear to be acquainted, I pointed 

 out that the two forms named respectively by Mr. Lydekker f 

 E. quagga Greyi and E. q. Lorenzi resemble each other and 

 differ from E. q. quagga and E. q. Damellim having the stripes 

 brown and the interspaces creamy yellow ; and, further, that 

 they may be distinguished from each other by certain cha- 

 racters, of %vhich the width of the stripes on the neck is one. 

 In Lorenzi the neck-stripes are exceedingly wide, the inter- 

 spaces forming distinct but very narrow pale lines, whereas 

 in Greyi the interspaces are relatively broad and the stripes 

 correspondingly narrow. 



So far as the width of the neck-stripes is concerned the 

 Paris specimen is more like the type of Lorenzi than is any 

 other recorded specimen. But the stripes are even wider % 

 and the intervening areas narrower than in the Vienna 



* Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. (7) xiv. pp. 313-328 (1904). 



t ' Knowledge,' xxv. p. 221 (1902). Dr. Trouessart probably had no 

 opportunity of consulting this paper, 



X In his description of the Paris specimen Dr. Trouessart writes: — 

 " Les bandes fences du cou sont doubles par le bas, mais confluentes a 

 leur partie superieure, de telle sorte que la bande intercalaire blanche est 

 tres 6troite." The photograph does not bear out this statement, for on 

 the left side of the body the stripes, so far as can be seen, are in two 

 cases confluent below and divided above and in two cases divided below 

 and confluent above, the rest being entire. Such confluence is not 

 unusual in the quaggine races of JSquus, with which I include the 

 Burchelline zebras. In any case, the alleged confluence does not aSect 

 the total number of neck-stripes, which is approximately the same in 

 the Paris and Vienna specimens, as well as in the type of Greyi and 

 various kinds of zebras of the Burchelli type. It is, moreover, the in- 

 crease in the width of the stripes, not their confluence, that causes the 

 narrowness of the intervening pale area. 



