18 MOSTLY MAMMALS 
types of apparently protective coloration are for their special 
purpose as good as (or better than) a uniform colora- 
tion, or under what circumstances, if any, the latter is 
superior to the former. For, curiously enough, both the 
forest and the plain type of coloration appear to have 
been transformed, in some instances, into a uniformly 
coloured coat. As regards the plain type, the, now extinct _ 
' quagga shows the partial loss of the stripes, ghia have 
‘completely disappeared from the wild asses of Northern 
" Africa. Very remarkable is the circumstance that from a 
fully striped animal like the so-called Grant’s zebra of 
Abyssinia there is a complete graduation to the typical 
Burchell’s zebra of the Transvaal, in which the stripes have 
disappeared from the legs, and the dark stripes are inter- 
calated with paler “shadow stripes.” One step from this 
animal and we reach the quagga, which, be it noted, in- 
habited the same country as the uniformly coloured Cape 
eland. Evidently in the Cape district both the forest and 
the plain types of striping were unsuitable and tended to 
disappear. In the North African wild asses the disappear- 
ance of the striping is complete. Before we ‘can attempt 
to explain this it is necessary to know whether a Grant’s 
zebra and a wild ass are equally inconspicuous in their 
own particular habitats, and whether any difference in this 
respect would be noticeable if the one were transported to 
the habitat of the other. 
An instance of the replacement of the forest type of 
striping by a uniform coat (otherwise than in the case of 
a desert-dwelling species) is afforded among the bushbucks 
by the males of the nyala, which have long, shaggy brown 
coats with but very indistinct traces of striping. Is this 
dark coat a better protection than the brilliantly striped 
one of the female, or is it assumed because the males 
