DAPPLED AND STRIPED HORSES 87 



Burchell's Zebra, and Grevy's Zebra, a new addition from Somali- 

 land,i which offers an astonishing example of animal striping. 



At Mr. Rowland Ward's establishment I was shown the skin 

 of what appears to be a variety of Burchell's Zebra. It had the 

 broad striping and arrangement of striping characteristic of that 

 species, but the intermediate paler bands were of a milk-white 

 colour, and without any trace of those faint stripes between the 

 black bands. I noted also that some of the broad black bands - 

 were made up of the fusion of two naiTower bands. 



There is another variety which is only partially banded, viz., 

 the Quagga, given in Fig. 54. The article on the Quagga in the 

 Encyclopedia Britannica (9th Edition) says : ' In length of ears 

 and character of tail it more resembles the Horse than it does the 

 Ass. . . . The colour of the head, neck, and upper parts of the body 

 is reddish brown, irregularly banded and marked with dark brown 

 stripes, stronger on the head and neck, and gradually becoming 

 fainter, until lost behind the shoulder.' The haunch and legs have 

 no stripes,^ and it approaches the character of Burchell's Zebra of 

 Fig. 53. Indeed, it has been frequently confounded with the latter 

 by hunters. The Quagga was very common in South Africa, but 

 now is very scarce. 



In my opinion, the Zebra stripes, like those of the Tiger and 

 other feline animals, owe their genesis to spots or rosettes or 

 dapplings, which had become disposed in transverse rows, some- 

 what like those on the Cheetah of Fig. 10, and on the legs of the 

 Jaguar of Fig. 4. Subsequently the rows of spots coalesced into 

 beady bands, and ultimately became the sharp-edged bands we see 

 in the Zebras. 



^ It has also been found on the shores of Lake Rudolf (narrative of Count Samuel 

 Telekis' expedition in Equatorial Africa). Figure of the skin in Proc. 7,ool. Soc. of London, 

 1890, p. 413. 



^ There is a variation of this in the Science and Art Museum of Edinburgh. 



