THE ZOOLOGIST 



No. 716.— February, 1901 



THE TRUE QUAGGA. 

 By Graham Renshaw, M.B. 



It was said of William the Conqueror that " he loved the tall 

 deer as though he were their father." If this be true, then he 

 has in these latter days been only too faitlifuUy imitated in South 

 Africa by Boer and by native alike ; for the love which they have 

 displayed towards the great game animals of the region between 

 the Cape and the Zambesi has been so paternal that of the 

 teeming millions of Mammalia whicli formerly graced veldt and 

 karroo, but a sadly diminished remnant has escaped their devas- 

 tating solicitude. 



The sad list of vanished or vanishing species already includes 

 the Blaauwbok, an Antelope whose brief history is a record of 

 speedy extermination at the hands of the early settlers ; the 

 Bontebok (its curious and striking colouration constituting it a 

 veritable mammalian magpie), only lingering under special pro- 

 tection near Cape Auulhas; the Blesbok, whose numbers to-day 

 are but a sliadow of its vast old=time legions ; the White-tailed 

 Gnu, strange apparent mixture of Buffalo and Pon}', yet a true 

 Antelope; the White Rhinoceros, huge yet harmless, a four- 

 footed Dodo; the ^Mountain Zebra, wliose decimated numbers 

 seem to be likely to suffer still further reduction owing to its 

 destruction of wire-fencing; the great Eland, once plentiful in 

 Caue Cidony itself, a lovable creature, with the meekness and 

 even the superficial appearance of a Jersey Cow ; and the South 



2ool. Mh Her. vol. V., February, 1901. E 



