78 On the Onager of the Antlents. 



mals ; and tViey confider it unlawful to mix the onager with 

 the tame afs, as thev do all mixed breeds of other animals. 



The {kin of the wild afs is hia'hly valued bv the Bucharians 

 for making fhagreen. Rauwolf fays the fame (hingof the 

 Syrian wild afs, the Ikins of which are brought to Tripoli for 

 fale. Thofe, however, who have hitherto believed that the 

 (kin of the wild afs is grained of itfelf, and like a natural kind 

 of (haiireen, or that ihagreen can be made of no other fkin 

 than that of the wild als, are much miflaken ; yet this er- 

 roneous opinion is to be found in fome modern writers, and 

 has been adopted even by BufTim. As I had an opportunity 

 at Aftracan of feeing the procefs ufed for the preparation of 

 the fine fliagreen, in order to deftrov this falfe idea I gave a 

 defcription of it in a former volume of this work . The 

 Bucharians, however, convert whole fkins of the wild afs 

 into a kind of coarfe black Ihagreen, of which thev make 

 boots of a lingular form, but remarkably durable, and having 

 the foles entirely covered with nails : thefe boots are ufed alfo 

 by the Kirgifians, and purchaied at a high price: the fine 

 fha^recn, on the other hand, is made chiefly in Perlia, and 

 from a particular part of the hides of hcjrfes. Refpe6fing the 

 Hones found in the wild afl'es, and of which Bauhin, in his 

 Latin Treatife on the Bezoar, diflinguilhcs two kinds, I 

 can fay nothing-: they arc the liones, perhaps, found in 

 the common afs or mules, which, in order to give them 

 p-reater importance, are pretended to be thofe of the above 

 animal, in the fame manner as (tones cut from horfes are 

 brought from Perfia and India vmder the name of Gar- 

 mandcl or Coromandel bezoar. I fliall pafs over in filence 

 all the fables related of the onager which may be found in 

 Gefner, Aldrovandi, and Bochart. The miftake of foine 

 modern writers, who confider llie onager of the antients as 

 the zebra, or who have confounded it with the djhiggetaiy is 

 unworthy of refutation. To be fully convinced that the wild 

 afs here defcribed is bevond all doubt the onager of the an- 

 tients, nothing will be neceflary but to compare this defcrip- 

 tioii with thofe of Oppian and other writers; and with the 

 paffage of Luitprand, bifliop of Cremona, quoted by Bochart. 



'*• ^Qt this defcription fee Phi!o:ophical Magazine, vol- vj. 



XIII. Account 



