A “BLAZE” FACE BURRO IN ARIZONA 
Spotted horses, dogs, cows are common enough, but did you ever see a spotted ass? 
perhaps the rarest of the spotted domesticated animals, except man himself. 
Tis 
One of 
the reasons for this may be that the ass has not been subjected to such severe selection in 
breeding as have most domesticated animals, and spotting or partial albinism seems to 
develop under stringent selection, while it is extremely rare in animals living under wild 
conditions. 
I neither saw spotted ones nor spoke 
with men who had noted them. Near 
the close of May we were in Naples. 
One day a beautiful, spotted donkey, 
spirited and high-stepping like a hack- 
ney, dashed past me around the corner 
of Piazza del Plebiscito. He was prob- 
ably fourteen hands high, and dragged 
a gentleman’s stylish two-wheeled cart 
with unusual speed and action. He was 
white, except for dark (brown) ears, a 
nearly continuous dark dorsal line, and 
dark spots on the shoulder from four to 
six inches across. For ten days I kept 
my eyes open in Naples for that dashing 
donkey, but I never saw him again. 
Later, however, I saw three others of 
the same appearance, though these 
166 
Photograph by Albert Ernest Jenks. 
(Fig. 7.) 
latter animals were somewhat smaller, 
and plodded along the roads as donkeys 
are supposed to travel. One was at 
Sorrento across the Bay from Naples. 
He is shown in Fig.-8. One of the other 
two was on the road from Amalfi to 
Cava, and the other was in the outskirts 
of Cava. All four of the spotted don- 
keys noted in or near Naples were, 
apparently from their markings, of the 
same breed. All were white with dark 
ears, dark dorsal stripe, and a few other 
dark areas arranged bi-laterally with 
noticeable symmetry. I was told by 
the owner of the spotted donkey photo- 
graphed in Sorrento that his father had 
obtained it near Naples, probably a 
short distance to the north, and that in 
