THE ANNALS 



AND 



MAGAZINE OF NATURAL HISTORY. 



[SEVENTH SERIES.] 

 No. 83. NOVEMBER 1904. 



XLV.— r^e Gape Colony Qaaggas. By R. I. POCOCK, 

 Superintendent of the Zoological Society's Gardens, late 

 Assistant in the Zoological Department of the British 

 Museum. 



[Plates IX. & X.] 



I. Introduction. 



In an interesting and suggestive paper in the P. Z. S. for 

 this year (vol. i. pp. 426-431), Mr. Lydekker discusses the 

 presence of a preorbital pit in the skulls of recent horses, and 

 incidentally attempts to establish two conclusions : (1) that 

 all the genuine Quaggas known to us either frona skms or 

 photographs or figures, with the possible exception of the 

 example at Vienna, are subspecifically identical, the ad- 

 mittedly great differences between some of the types being 

 due either to individual variation or to fading from exposure 

 to \\"\\i or to carelessness in drawing ; (2) that the species 

 they'^constitute differs specifically from all the forms ^of the 

 animal commonly known as Burchell's Zebra. These, 

 presumably, are the views of the older generation of natura- 

 lists to which Mr. Lydekker has reverted. But since I 

 have long been of a different opinion on both these points, 

 I avail myself of the opportunity afforded by the publica- 

 tion of Mr. Lydekker's paper to state at greater length 

 Ann. ik Mag. N. Hist. Ser. 7. Vol. xiv. 22 



