COMMON ZEBRA OR BONTE-QUAGGA 689 
viously each is a “law unto itself.” Not only does the 
coloration of the quagga zebras emphasize this point, but 
it goes much further toward breaking down our general 
theories by responding very diversely in color changes over 
the northern and southern parts of its range, or, in other 
words, the changes we find in effect in one part of the range 
cannot be used as a clew to what may be expected to occur 
over other parts of the range. 
A freak or abnormally colored specimen of the highland 
quagga zebra has been collected near Lake Nakuru, British 
East Africa, by G. H. Goldfinch and described recently as 
a new race, goldfinchi , by Ridgway. This specimen has a 
peculiar large, irregular white blotch across the middle of 
the back which is divided on the midline by the dark dorsal 
stripe. Two other similar specimens have been seen at the 
same spot which are, without doubt, blood relatives of the 
type. Specimens of this sort have no standing in nature 
as a race, but merely represent abnormal individuals. 
Colonel Delme-Radcliffe records, in the proceedings of the 
Zoological Society of London for 1905, a zebra observed by 
him near Rushenyi, Uganda, which was much more ex¬ 
tensively white, the stripes being evident only on the neck 
and the hind quarters, the rest of the body being quite 
albinistic. This specimen was associated with a large 
herd of normally colored zebras. An albino zebra is also 
recorded by Oscar Neumann from Manyara Lake in the 
Rift Valley of German East Africa. Albinism has also 
been observed by Percival among Grevy zebra in the vicin¬ 
ity of the Lorian swamp. 
The highland quagga is distinguishable from the coast 
and the northern desert forms by only average characters 
or slight differences. From bohmi , the race occupying the 
low coast lands, it is distinguishable by the smaller body 
size, the somewhat narrower stripes on the hind quarters, 
and by the whiter color of the light stripes which seldom 
show any buffy suffusion. The Northern Guaso Nyiro 
desert race, cuninghamei , differs from granti by smaller 
body size much as granti does from bohmi but has better 
marked color differences, the dark stripes being quite brown¬ 
ish, bistre or seal-brown, instead of black. The average 
length of male skulls in granti is 20 inches as against 19 
