80 Great and Small Game of Africa 



the various races of Burchell's zebra, and which certainly does not differ 

 more from the type form of that species than do the sub-species of the 

 same animal found in Mashunaland and Nyasaland. The typical form of 

 Burchell's zebra, with white tail, white legs, and belly also entirely white, 

 except for the median stripe, I have never seen in the flesh. It had been 

 exterminated before my time, and although I think I have shot some 

 Burchell's zebras in Khama's country in which the lower portions of the 

 legs as well as the pasterns and the fetlocks were unstriped, the form I am 

 best acquainted with is that found throughout Mashunaland and South- 

 East Africa, in which the tail is black ' — or nearly so — the stripes on the 

 sides reach to the median line of the belly, and the legs are striped right 

 down to the pasterns and fetlocks, which are themselves black. As, 

 however, the habits of all the different varieties of Burchell's zebras are the 

 same wherever I have travelled, I shall henceforth only speak of them in the 

 course of this article by the name of the discoverer of the type form. In 

 parts of the country where it has not been shot down, Burchell's zebra 

 often runs in large herds of from fifty to over a hundred together. North 

 of the Limpopo, until quite recently, this species was found everywhere 

 where there was water, except in dense jungle. The country it prefers is, 

 I think, open forest intersected by grassy glades, but it is also very partial 

 to large open spaces entirely devoid of bush, such as occur all over the 

 generally forested portions of South-East Africa, and it was once very 

 numerous in parts of the Orange Free State and the Western Transvaal, 

 where the greater part of the country was devoid of forest or bush. 



It is often found in very stony ground, and also frequents broken hilly 

 country wherever there are grassy valleys amongst the hills. Its hoofs are 

 beautifully formed for running in rocky ground, being deeply hollowed, 

 and as hard as iron. In shape they are very much rounder than the hoofs 



' The tail of a Burchell's zebra shot by myself near the Botletli River, Ngamiland, in Khama's 



