216 DOMESTICATED ANIMALS AND PLANTS 



not been a favorite except in the form of the mule, which is 

 half horse. 1 



Two distinct species of the truly wild ass are known, the 

 Asiatic (E. hemionus) and the African (E. asinus). The for- 

 mer range over the more arid regions of Syria, Persia, Tibet, 

 Mongolia, and western India, and the latter is indigenous to 

 Abyssinia and the highlands of northeastern Africa generally. 



It is from this latter stock that the common ass of Europe 

 and America is descended, through the early Egyptian domesti- 

 cation. It is considered more than likely also, on account of 

 their close resemblance, that the domesticated races of Asia trace 

 to the same source rather than to the wild stock of their own 

 country, at least so far as the historic regions of Palestine and 

 the west are concerned, whose relations were from an early day 

 much more intimate with the civilization of Egypt than with 

 the wild and remote Asiatic regions inhabited by E. hemionus. 



Upon the whole, it cannot be said that the ass has profited 

 much by domestication. Fitted by nature to exist under hard 

 conditions, man has made the most of his natural faculties in 

 this direction, and he has generally suffered neglect and abuse 

 above that of any animal that has ever been domesticated, un- 

 less it may be the Eskimo dog. Accordingly he is almost every- 

 where a dull, spiritless creature, poorly fed and ill conditioned 

 generally, — a walking advertisement of a hard life. 



All writers, however, both ancient and modern, agree as to 

 the spirit, beauty, and fleetness of the wild ass, especially the 

 African progenitor of the domesticated form. Bible history, too, 

 teaches that the ass was not always regarded with the low esteem 

 of the present day, but that in former times he was a general 

 favorite in domestication as he was a common symbol among 



1 Strictly speaking, a "mule" is any hybrid or "cross" between distinct 

 species. In common parlance, however, the term is limited to the offspring of 

 the female horse and the male ass. The opposite or reciprocal cross between 

 the female ass and the male horse is called the hinny. It does not differ 

 materially from the mule, but is seldom seen because ofthe aversion to keeping 

 the ass in numbers, as would be necessary to breed hinnies. 



