364 EXTINCT AND VANISHING MAMMALS 



considered the same form as that of Baluchistan and western India. 

 The animal has evidently disappeared over a great part of this 

 range. It survives in small numbers in the Rann of Cutch, India, 

 and probably in some of the desert tracts of southeastern Persia. 



The general color (in summer) is sandy ; muzzle, buttocks, breast, 

 lower parts, and inside of limbs white x ; ears sandy externally, white 

 internally, with a blackish tip and outer border; mane and tail tuft 

 blackish brown; a chocolate-brown vertebral stripe extending from 

 mane to tail, bordered from the withers backward by a light area; 

 front of all four limbs very light, with a slight yellowish tinge; a 

 narrow blackish ring above the hoofs. The winter pelage is longer, 

 and grayish. Height of male at shoulder, about 47 inches. (Chiefly 

 from Jerdon, 1874, pp. 236-237, and Schwarz, 1929, pp. 87-88.) An 

 adult female from the Punjab-Sind frontier measured: height, 46 

 inches; tail (including hair), 26 inches; ear from crown, 9 inches 

 (Blanford, 1891, p. 470). 



The absence of a shoulder stripe in the male, the presence of a 

 blackish ring above the hoofs, and apparently the less pure white 

 of the lower parts, may serve to distinguish the Indian from the 

 North Persian subspecies (onager). 



The place of this animal in ancient history is sketched by Ridge- 

 way (1905, pp. 47-48). According to Herodotus (VII, 86), "some 

 of the Indians in the army of Xerxes drove chariots drawn by 'wild 

 asses.' 



"From this it is clear that the peoples of western Hindustan, who 

 did not possess horses, had made the wild ass obedient to the yoke. 



"In Carmania . . . , a region bounded by the Indian Ocean and 

 Persian Gulf on the south, and by Persia on the west, down to the 

 time of Strabo, 'asses on account of the scarcity of horses' were 

 'generally made use of in war. They sacrifice an ass to Ares, who is 

 the only god worshipped by them, for they are a warlike people.' " 



According to an anonymous writer in Oken's Isis (Band 2, Heft 

 7, p. 764, 1823) , herds numbering up to 60 or 70 were observed in the 

 Rann of Cutch. The animals are said by the natives to be very shy 

 and hard to capture. In November and December they come deeper 

 into the land, in herds of hundreds, and cause great damage in the 

 cultivated fields. Therefore they are caught in pitfalls. The flesh 

 is considered good by many people of the lower classes, who lie in 

 wait for them when they come to drink. 



The breeding of captive animals from Hindustan was successfully 

 carried out in Paris from 1842 to 1849. Of nine foals produced 

 during this period, six survived in 1849. The animal was also said 



i A specimen recorded by Lydekker (1916, vol. 5, p. 13) from the Sham Plains. 

 Baluchistan, is not so pure white on the lighter parts as three specimens of 

 A. h. onager from Yezd, Persia (J. C. Phillips, in Hit., June, 1938). 



