The Quagga ^. 



stands 4 feet 6 inches high at the withers, and measures 8 feet 6 inches 

 in extreme length. Form compact. Barrel round. Limbs robust, 

 clean and sinewy. Head light and bony, of a bay colour, covered 

 on the forehead and temples with longitudinal, and on the cheeks 

 with narrow transversal stripes, forming linear triangular figures, 

 between the eye and mouth. Muzzle black. Ears and tail strictly 

 equine ; the latter white, and flowing below the hocks. Crest very high, 

 arched, and surmounted by a full standing mane, which appears as though 

 it had been hogged, and is banded alternately brown and white. Colour 

 of the neck and upper parts of the body dark rufous-brown, becoming 

 gradually more fulvous, and fading off to white behind and underneath. 

 The upper portions banded and brindled with dark brown stripes, stronger, 

 broader and more regular on the neck, but gradually waxing fainter, until 

 lost behind the shoulders in spots and blotches. Dorsal line dark and 

 broad, widening over the crupper. Legs white, with bare spots inside 

 above the knees. Female precisely similar." 



It will be seen from this description that the quagga differed widely 

 from the other three members of the zebra group. In height it stood 

 about on a par with Burchell's zebra— some 131 hands— but seems to 

 have been somewhat more robustly built. It would appear to have been 

 more easily domesticated than the true zebra. Sparrman, the well-known 

 Swedish scientist, who travelled at the Cape in 1775, mentions having seen 

 a quagga, which, having been caught when it was very young, "was 

 become so tame that it came to us to be caressed. It was said never to 

 be frightened by the hyaena, but on the contrary that it would pursue this 

 fierce animal, whenever this latter made its appearance in those parts, so 

 that it was a most certain guard for the horses, with which it was turned 

 out to grass at night." The quagga was certainly driven in harness, 

 occasionally, both at the Cape and in Mauritius, in the last century, while 

 in the earlier part of the present century SherifF Parkins was in the habit 



