BURCHELVS ZEBRA. 313 



Selous, the celebrated African sportsman and naturalist, tells 

 me that it " was first discovered by Burchell near the Orange 

 River in Southern Bechuanaland. It is still to be met with 

 in Kama's country, and along the northern and eastern 

 borders of the Transvaal. In the neighbourhood of the 

 Pungwe River, it exists in very great numbers, herds of 

 hundreds together being common." It is probably widely 

 distributed throughout Central and Eastern Africa, On 

 account of the fact that this zebra, when in a wild state, 

 possesses immunity from the effects of the bite of the tsetse 

 fly, which is certain death to horses, I strongly advocated, 

 while I was in South Africa, the taming and employment 

 for harness or saddle, of these animals in "fly" infected 

 districts. With respect to this subject, Mr. Selous writes to 

 me that : " although Burchell's zebra, born and brought up in 

 the ' fly ' country, does not sufler from its bite, it is my 

 opinion that if a young one was caught and brought up in a 

 locality where there was no ' fly,' and was then taken into a 

 ' fly ' infested district, it would die. This, however, is only 

 my opinion.' As the Burchell zebra is comparatively easy to 

 break in, and as it will breed in confinement, there is but little 

 doubt that it will in time become domesticated. If, as is 

 quite possible, it possesses little or no tendency to contract 

 " horse sickness," it will prove a valuable means of convey- 

 ance in South Africa. During one of my horse-breaking 

 performances in 1892, at Pretoria, the capital of the 

 Transvaal, I made a young Burchell zebra, after about an 

 hour's handling, quiet to carry a rider. In doing this, I 

 did not throw the animal down, nor did I resort to any of the 

 usual " heroic " horse-taming methods. Throughout South 

 Africa, this variety of zebra is wrongly called a quagga. 



