Page 59 - Our Vanishing Wild Life

EXTINCT AND NEARLY EXTINCT SPECIES iT
BURCHELL'S ZEBRA, IN THE U. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM Now Believed to be Totally Extinct
'that such a species was quickly exterminated by man, in the arctic regions. The wonder is that it ever existed at a latitude so outrageous for a Siren- ian, an animal which by all precedents should prefer life in temperate or warm waters.
Burchell's Zebra (Equus burchelli typicus).—The foundation type- of what now is the Burchell group of zebras, consisting of four or five sub- species of the original species of burchelli, is an animal abundantly striped as to its body, neck and head, but with legs that are almost white and free from stripes. The sub-species have legs that are striped about half as much as the mountain zebra and the Grevy species.
While there are Chapman zebras and Grant zebras in plent}-, and of Crawshay's not a few, all these are forms that have developed northward of the range of the parent species, the original Eqtms burchelli. For half a century in South Africa the latter had been harried and driven and shot, andnowitisgone,forever. Now,themuseumpeopleoftheworldare hungrily enumerating their mounted specimens, and live ones cannot be procured with money, because there are none ! Already it is comn'.on talk that "the true Burchell zebra is extinct;" and unfortunately there is no good reason to doubt it. Even if there are a few now living in some