ITS NEAREST EXISTING RELATIONS. 85 



head, cheeks, and jaws. The skull and the hoofs 

 are described as being more like those of the horse 

 than the ass. 



Until more specimens are obtained it is difficult to 

 form a definite opinion as to the validity of this spe- 

 cies, or to resist the suspicion that it may not be an 

 accidental hybrid between the kiang and the horse. * 



WILD ASSES. The remaining existing species of 

 Equidce belong to the asinine group as defined above, 

 and may be conveniently divided into the plain-col- 

 ored, or true asses, and the striped, or zebras. 



The extensive open plains of various parts of 

 Asia, from Syria in the west, through Persia, Afghan- 

 istan, the north-west of India, and the highlands of 

 Tartary and Thibet from the shores of the Caspian 

 to the frontiers of China, are the home of numerous 

 herds of wild asses, the individuals in each of which 

 may be from a dozen to twenty in number, or 

 amount to thousands, as described by Dr. Aitchison 

 in his report on the zoological results of the Afghan 

 Frontier Expedition of 1884. They present such a 



* The brothers Grijimailo, in a paper published last year 

 in the Isvestija of the Russian Geographical Society (of which 

 a translation will shortly appear in the Proceedings of the 

 Royal Geographical Society of London), mention meeting with 

 this wild horse in the desert of Dzungaria, and are said to 

 have secured four skins and a skeleton of the species, a full 

 description of which, it may be hoped, will shortly be forth- 

 coming. 



