ORDER PERISSODACTYLA: ODD-TOED UNGULATES 367 



the Indian subspecies and said to have come from the desert north- 

 east of Kerman, Persia. He regards this locality as the present 

 western limit for the subspecies, although he makes Asinus hamar 

 Hamilton Smith (from the northern part of the Province of Fars) 

 a synonym of A. h. khur. I prefer to consider hamar indeterminable 

 at the present time. 



Syrian Wild Ass. Hemippe de Syrie (Fr.) Syrischer 

 Halbesel (Ger.) 



ASINUS HEMIONUS HEMIPPUS (I. Geoffrey) 



Equus hemippus I. Geoff roy-Saint-Hilaire, C. R. Acad. Sci. [Paris], vol. 41, 

 p. 1214, (1855) 1856. (Based upon two live captives, said to have come 

 "du desert de Syrie, entre Palmyre et Bagdad" (op. cit., p. 1219, 

 footnote).) 



FIGS.: Milne-Edwards, Nouv. Archives Mus. Hist. Nat. Paris, vol. 5, Bulletin, 

 pi. 4, 1869 (cotype); Antonius, 1928, figs. 1-5, and 1939, fig. 1. 



The question of the Wild Asses of the Syria-Palestine-Arabia- 

 Iraq region is a very troublesome one, especially on account of the 

 meagerness of material and information. It is further complicated 

 by the fact that a number of authors recognize two distinct species 

 in this region, although in no other part of the world are as many 

 as two different forms of Wild Asses definitely known to occur to- 

 gether. The Wild Ass of this region must be on the verge of extinc- 

 tion, if not already extinct. 



Since Geoffrey's cotypes (1856, p. 1217) were both subadult 

 females, we shall turn to Antonius (1928, pp. 21-22) for a description 

 of both sexes of hemippus. This is the smallest form of Recent 

 Equidae. The general color of the male is "avellaneous" (Ridgway) , 

 becoming a sort of mouse gray with age ; the color is lightest on the 

 head, darkest on the haunches; a light area in front of hips; buttocks, 

 belly, and inner side of legs dirty grayish white; outer side of legs, 

 lower side of neck, and outer surface of ears "tilleul buff"; tips of 

 ears originally dark brown, later almost white; mane rather long, 

 "natal brown"; vertebral stripe, of the same color, extending from 

 the mane to the tail tuft, and bordered by a lighter area; area 

 above the nostrils grayish white; nostrils very large and nasal 

 region swollen. Height at shoulder, 1 meter. 



The general color of the female is between avellaneous and fawn 

 color; buttocks and lower parts pure white; outer side of legs and 

 ears "pinkish buff"; tips of latter scarcely darker. Height at 

 shoulder, 1 meter. 



Tristram (1884), Aharoni (1930), and Bodenheimer (1935) fail 

 to assign any adequate diagnostic characters to the two kinds of 

 Wild Asses that they recognize; they also place both of them in the 



