360 EXTINCT AND VANISHING MAMMALS 



Both Pallas (1781, pp. 34-37) and Hablizl (1783, pp. 89-92) 

 furnished descriptions of the original two specimens (male and 

 female) from Kasbin. Since Hablizl alone was acquainted with the 

 male in life, his description of that sex may be considered the more 

 dependable, and is here utilized. In the male the top and sides of 

 the head are half-reddish, the lower side and the muzzle white; 

 outer surface of ears reddish yellow at base and tip, white in the 

 middle; sides of neck and of body and fore part of haunch reddish 

 yellow (isabelline) ; mane light brown, composed of hairs 3-4 inches 

 long; a light-brown vertebral stripe, up to 2^ to 3 inches wide, extend- 

 ing from the mane to end of the tail; a similar but smaller stripe 

 crossing this at right angles on the shoulders; lower neck, lower 

 shoulder, breast, belly, buttocks, vertical area in front of thigh, 

 dorsal area bordering the vertebral stripe, and legs white; tail like 

 a cow's, with a tuft of long, light-brown and white hairs. Height at 

 shoulder, 50 inches; ear, 11^ inches; tail (including tuft), 25 inches. 

 The female is similar, but smaller, and lacks the shoulder stripe. 

 Height at shoulder, 44 inches; ear, 8J inches; tail, 20 inches. 



The three skins from Yezd, Persia, listed by Lydekker (1916, 

 vol. 5, pp. 14-15) , are very white on the sides and belly and have no 

 shoulder stripe (J. C. Phillips, in litt., June, 1938). Whether these 

 specimens are all females, or whether some males lack the shoulder 

 stripe, is difficult to say. Goodwin (1940, p. 17) decribes the summer 

 pelage as either avellaneous or light pinkish cinnamon, with a faint 

 shoulder stripe ; and the winter pelage as sayal brown, without a 

 shoulder stripe. 



Persia. The Persian range of this Wild Ass is here considered 

 restricted to a portion of the Persian Plateau, extending north to the 

 Elburz Mountains, east to Afghanistan, south to about the latitude 

 of Seistan, Kerman, and Shiraz, and west (at least formerly) to the 

 mountain ranges extending along the line Kasbin-Ispahan-Shiraz. 1 



Since Omar Khayyam was a resident of Naishapur in Khorassan, 

 it was doubtless the present subspecies that he had in mind in the 

 following verse: 



They say the Lion and the Lizard keep 

 The Courts where Jamshyd gloried and drank deep : 

 And Bahrain, that great Hunter the Wild Ass 

 Stamps o'er his head, but cannot break his Sleep. 



1 There is considerable uncertainty, however, as to the boundary between the 

 ranges of this and the Indian subspecies. For example, Lydekker (1904, p. 

 589, pi. 17) refers to the latter a male in the London Zoo that was said 

 (probably erroneously) to have come from the desert near Meshed, in north- 

 eastern Persia; it lacked the shoulder stripe generally considered diagnostic 

 of onager. There seem to be extremely few records of specimens with shoulder 

 stripes and from a definite locality. 



