394 KLOOF AND KARROO. 



In this opinion I am fortified by Mr. F. C. Selous, 

 who told me only a few months since, just before 

 his last return to Africa, that he had not heard of 

 a true quagga in the Free State for some years, 

 and doubted not that it had become completely 

 exterminated. Other South African informants 

 confirm this opinion. 



It may be well, before proceeding further, to 

 remind readers that among all South African interior 

 hunters and traders, Burchell's zebra — called by the 

 Boers, from its fuller markings, the bonte quagga 

 (literally the pied or spotted quagga), in contra- 

 distinction to the now extinct true quagga — -is also 

 invariably, if erroneously, called a quagga. In this 

 way a good deal of confusion has arisen, and many 

 people, no doubt, still suppose that the rarer true 

 quagga is yet plentiful in the distant territories 

 beyond the Orange River. 



I find that among hide-brokers and others in 

 the skin and leather trades, this confusion has also 

 arisen, and that the skins of the Burchell's zebra, 

 which still arrive in this country in large numbers 

 from East Africa, are invariably classed as 

 " quaggas." 



The true quagga, as a matter of fact, was easily 

 to be distinguished from Burchell's zebra, by the 

 paucity of its stripings, which extended only to the 

 centre of the barrel, and by its general body colour 

 — a rich rufous brown, fading to white underneath. 

 Burchell's zebra, on the contrary, is completely 

 striped all over the body (save as to the legs), while 

 its body colour is yellowish sienna. The true zebra 

 {Equus zebra) , formerly the rarest of the hippotigrine 

 group, differs widely, again, from both the above- 



