72 Great and Small Game of Africa 



The Quagga (Equus quagga) 

 Hottentot Name, Quaha 



The true quagga was anciently known to the Dutch of Cape Colony as 

 wilde cscl, or wild ass, to distinguish it from the true zebra, which they 

 christened wilde paard, or wild horse. In more recent times, however, it 

 was more often called, even by the colonists, by its Hottentot name quacha 

 (pronounced quaha), Anglicised to quagga, which was manifestly bestowed 

 upon the animal from the two notes of its cry or neigh. It should be 

 remembered that a good deal of confusion has been created among the 

 uninitiated, from the fact that the Dutch farmers of the Orange Free 

 State and Transvaal, so soon as they discovered the Burchell's zebra in the 

 early years of this century, christened that animal also bonte quacha, or 

 striped quagga, and that, ever since, Burchell's zebra has been more often than 

 not loosely referred to, even by English hunters, as a " quagga." From 

 this confusion it was long imagined, even by naturalists, years after the true 

 quagga had become extinct, that that animal was still in the flesh. The 

 extermination of this handsome quadruped has been of such comparatively 

 recent date, between 1865 and 1870 in the Cape Colony, and probably 

 between 1870 and 1873 in the Orange Free State, that it has been thought 

 only fair to include it in a work dealing at length with the game animals 

 of Africa. Its description, habits, and distribution are also likely to be of 

 interest to those sportsmen and naturalists who are now, unhappily, no 

 longer able to set eyes upon the quagga in the living state. 



The exact description of the true quagga is, perhaps, best reproduced 

 from the very careful notes of Sir Cornwallis Harris, who encountered 

 the animal when it was still plentiful in the Cape Colony and abounding 

 on the plains between the Orange and the Vaal — in the country now 

 known as the Orange Free State — in the year 1837. "The adult male 



