252 Mr. E. Blyth on the differ-ent Animals known as Wild Asses. 



level countries ; and, indeed, experience has long since taught 

 that he is altogether unfit for crossing rocky and steep moun- 

 tains." Hill-ponies may, indeed, be cited as exceptions to a 

 greater or less extent ; but the fact is nevertheless true in the 

 main — and hence the breeding of mules in mountainous coun- 

 tries, which should combine the size and strength of one parent- 

 species with the hardihood and sure-footedness of the other. 

 All of the Asinine tribe seem to be quite indifferent to heat, and 

 some at least of them are equally so to cold, as especially exem- 

 plified by the Koulans or Ghor-khurs about Lake Aral ; and the 

 tame Asses of this country, under the fiercest mid-day sun, may 

 commonly be observed to evince their innate fondness for the 

 parched desert, as strongly as a kid manifests its propensity to 

 clamber rocks, by keeping to the dusty roads, in preference to 

 the pasture, whenever they are not feeding. 



Of several species so very nearly akin, in different countries, 

 it is remarkable that only the Ass should have been subjected to 

 servitude (save in a few individual cases at most) ; but it appears 

 that the experiments which have been systematically carried on, 

 now for several years, by the Acclimatation Society at Paris, have 

 been attended with considerable success in breaking-in Ghor- 

 khurs, which have been bred there for a series of generations, 

 and that these animals are now daily mounted and ridden. 

 Many years ago, the celebrated Sheriff Perkins drove a pair of 

 Quaggas through the streets of London, as I well remember to 

 have witnessed when a child. 



The following species of the division Asinus, as defined by 

 Gray, are now likely to be generally acknowledged : — 



1. A. Quagga. The Quagga, from the Cape territories, and 

 scarcely found northward of the Gariep or Orange River; but 

 still in great herds southward, associating with the White-tailed 

 Gnu, as the next does with the Brindled Gnu, and both with 

 Ostriches (as in Xenophon's time the A. hemippus did in Meso- 

 potamia). The most Horse-like in structure of any. The 

 Hippotigris isabellinus of Col. C. H. Smith is probably founded 

 on a Quagga-foal, perhaps not very exactly represented. Such 

 an animal as this, or as the " Isabelline Zebra " of Levaillant 

 could not have been overlooked by all subsequent explorers of 

 South Africa. 



2. A. Burchellii, Gray (Equus zebra of Burchell). The Dauw, 

 or original Hippotigris of the ancients, and also the original 

 Zebra of Pigafetta from Congo ; but unknown to Buffon, who 

 regarded the next, or Mountain Zebra, and the Quagga as the 

 two sexes of one species, denominated by him the Zebra (Hip- 

 potigris Burchellii and H. antiquorum of C. H. Smith). Exten- 



