THE HUNTING OF THE ONAGER 



able for sand and Arabs in the offing. In Central Asia, 

 however, the desert is generally of the more popular 

 character, and here it is that onagers frequent the stony 

 ground and offer sport to the horseman. This sport is 

 carried on, among other places, in the very appropriately 

 named " Runn of Cutch," and it is said that the wild ass 

 is not so fleet as legend would have it. In twenty-five 

 miles the wild ass can be run down by an expert rider. 

 It is not of much use economically when it is run down. 

 This wild ass and its very near relative, the kiang, 

 suffer from the same curiosity that marks the zebra. 

 The fondness of the costermonger's donkey for thistles 

 and its resolute voice need not move us to vulgar mirth ; 

 we may, in fact, be as sentimental over the facts as 

 Sterne. The two characters indicate in a most inter- 

 esting way the past history of the domestic ass. Thistles 

 are of the kind of plants which stony localities produce, 

 arid and thick skinned, to preserve what little moisture 

 is necessary to their existence. That the donkey pre- 

 fers them now is surely a sign of former life in stony 

 places. So, too, its dislike of water, and its habit of 

 rolling in the dust. The voice is held to be a danger 

 signal to its fellows. It always reminds us of the final 

 notes in the roar of that animal whose skin the donkey 

 once wore. 



THE WART HOG 



To represent the pig tribe we shall select this animal, 

 which is entirely African in habitat, and is to be divided 

 into two distinct species of which the technical names 

 are Phacechoerus aethiopicus and P. africanus (formerly 

 known as P. A eliani] . The wart hog is with some justice 

 described as a " superlatively ugly " animal. Its pe- 

 culiarities of visage, to use a milder term, are mainly 

 due to various excrescences upon the face, almost if not 

 quite of the nature of horns. A pair of these in front of 



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