814 Mr. E. T. Pocock on 



than heretofore tlie reasons upon which my opinions are 

 founded ; and I do this the more readily because it seems 

 to me that the data upon wliich Mr. Lydekker relies are 

 demonstrably unsound or open to certain obvious and 

 cogent criticisms, which leave the questions at issue prac- 

 tically in statu quo ante, unless, indeed, they may be claimed as 

 strengthened on my side by the refutation of the first authori- 

 tative adverse arguments that have been levelled against my 

 beliefs. Also it may help to elucidate the difficulties besettins; 

 the determination of what are called the " true Quaggas," 

 if an attempt is made to point out the salient characteristics of 

 the principal types which commonly pass under that name. 

 Two of these, of which specimens have luckily been pre- 

 served, were, a year or two back, regarded by Mr. Lydekker 

 liimself as worthy of nominal subspecific distinction. To 

 these the evidence compels me to add a third, which, al- 

 though unfortunately, like the first described form, known 

 only from figures and descriptions, is yet the best-marked 

 type of the four and the one that is perhaps the most in- 

 teresting in the matter of coloration to students of the equine 

 family. Current descriptions of "the Quagga" have been 

 drawn mainly from these four sources to the creation and 

 fostering of forgetful ness of the characters of the original 

 type. 



II. The two Characters alleged to be distinctive of 



THE " QUAGGAS '' AS COMPARED WITH THE " BuECHELL'S 



Zebras.'' 



(1) It is stated by Mr. Lydekker that the pattern on the 

 forehead in Equus quagga forms a shorter and more regular 

 diamond than in tlie Bonte Quagga {E. Surclielli), and that 

 in the former the centre of the diamond is a pale stripe with 

 four or five dark stripes on each side of it, whereas in all 

 Bonte Quaggas or Burchell's Zebras the diamond is made 

 up of from five to nine stripes, tlie middle line being black, 

 with from two to four stripes on each side. This proposition 

 is not in all cases true either of the " Quaggas '' or the 

 " BurchelFs Zebras.'" In his very accurate description of 

 the quagga in the Vienna Museum (P. Z. S. 1902, vol. i. 

 p. 35), Dr. Lorenz says: "Eight narrow lines [t. e. dark 

 stripes] run from between the eyes down to the back of the 

 nose and up to the beginning of the mane ; from the middle 

 of the front a ninth medial line ru7is to the hack of the nose." 

 This quagga, therefore, differs in this particular from the one 

 in the British Museum. So far also as the Burchell's Zebras 



