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Show 1904.] AND MARKINGS OF THE QUAGGA. 429 the number of dark bars varies from five to nine, thus making the centre of the diamond a dark line *. All this tends to confirm my view of the specific distinctness of E. burchelli from E. quagga. I may here take the opportunity of referring to another point in connection with the markings and coloration of the Quagga. Both Mr. Pocock f and myself % have suggested that the Quaggas figured by Edwards in the work cited above, by Harris in the ' Game Animals of South Africa,' and by Hamilton Smith in Jardine's ' Naturalist's Library,' may be subspecifically distinct from the one figured by York and the specimens preserved in various museums ; and I have even gone so far as to propose separate racial names for two of the latter. Apparently Cornwallis Harris was also of the same opinion, as at the end of his description of the Quagga he gives an illustration of the skin " of an animal exhibited in the Zoological Gardens as a Quagga.'" Having obtained a considerable number of photographs, I am now very doubtful whether the presumed division into races is justifiable, although it is possible that the Vienna specimen § may be distinct; and, despite certain differences in regard to the width and backward extension of the stripes and also the relative proportions of the white and fawn areas, I am disposed to regard the Quaggas figured by Edwards, Harris, and Smith as representing the same type of animal. Incorrect drawing and colouring (which is noticeable in many of Harris's plates) will, I think, account for most, if not all of the differences. All these plates represent a pale rufous or fawn-coloured animal, with white limbs and underparts, and black stripes on the head, neck, and fore-quarters; such stripes extending in Edwards's figure backwards on to the flanks and croup, where they break up into lines of spots. From this general type I am unable to separate the two Quaggas drawn by Waterhouse Hawkins from specimens living at Knowsley, and figured by Gray in his ' Knowsley Menagerie.' It is true that their ground-colour is very much less rufous than in the specimens figured by Edwards, Harris, and Smith, but this may perhaps be accounted for either by more accurate attention to nature, or by the European climate having tended to darken the Knowsley specimens. Be this as it may, the latter are distinctly and unmistakably fawn-coloured animals with blackish-brown stripes ; such stripes extending farther back on the quarters in one specimen than in the other. On the other hand, in the British Museum mounted specimen and all the available photographs of Quaggas (whether from living or stuffed examples) the head and fore-quarters display white stripes separated by broader dark intervals which appear to be of * This is shown in the figure of F. burchelli in Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1903, ii. t Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist. ser. 6, vol. xx. p. 38 (1897). X ' Knowledge,' vol. xxv. p. 20 (1902). § Proc. Zool. Soc. London. 1902, i. p. 32. |