| 释义 |
quagga|ˈkwægə, ˈkwɒgə|
Also 8–9 quacha, 9 -ccha, kwagga, quagger.
[South African. The earliest authorities give it as a Hottentot word, writing it quacha (Juncker, 1710), quaiha (Kolbe, 1719, prob. a misprint), or quagga (Sparrman, 1783), but it is now current in Xhosa in the form iqwara, with clicking q and guttural r. (J. Platt, in Athenæum, 19 May, 1901).]
a. A South African equine quadruped (Equus or Hippotigris Quagga), related to the ass and zebra, but less fully striped than the latter.
b. Burchell's zebra.
The true quagga is believed to have been exterminated about 1873.
1785G. Forster tr. Sparrman's Voy. Cape G.H. I. 223 One of the animals called quaggas by the Hottentots and colonists. 1797Encycl. Brit. (ed. 3) VI. 713 The quacha, or quagga. 1815Sir J. Barrow Travels 320 The Qua-cha, which was long thought to be the female Zebra, is now known to be of a species entirely different. 1815Times 25 July 1/4 To be Sold..Two beautiful Animals of the Zebra species, called Quaggers; they are perfectly docile..being two of the handsomest ever imported to this country. 1834Pringle Afr. Sk. viii. 274 The poor quagga..is a timid animal with a gait and figure much resembling those of an ass. 1839Darwin Jrnl. Beagle v. 100 Two zebras, and the quaccha, two gnus, and several antelopes. 1859― Orig. Spec. v. (1873) 128 The quagga, though so plainly barred like a zebra over the body, is without bars on the legs. 1899Pall Mall Gaz. 21 Nov. 2/1 It [sc. Cape Colony] was the great home of the brown quagga. (‘Kwokka’..is the proper pronunciation of the name of the old friend of my childhood's natural history.) 1937Nature 25 Dec. 1079/2 The blaauwbok..and the quagga have already vanished. 1966E. Palmer Plains of Camdeboo viii. 141 Of all our vanished creatures we mourn these quaggas most of all. 1974Nature 11 Oct. 468/2 The last quagga died in the Amsterdam Zoo in 1883, but it is thought that this one had outlived by several years the wild quagga in South Africa.
attrib.1899Q. Rev. Oct. 412 The quagga hybrid was less striped than many dun-coloured horses. |