368 EXTINCT AND VANISHING MAMMALS 



Syrian Desert and neighboring regions. Thus the two forms must be 

 specifically distinct, if distinct at all. The names applied are onager 

 and hem,ippus, which are currently considered subspecies of a single 

 species. It is almost unquestionable that the name Asinus hemionus 

 onager (Boddaert) , typified by the Wild Ass of northwestern Persia, 

 cannot be applied to a form of the Syrian Desert. If there was a 

 Wild Ass in this region distinct from hemippus, some other name than 

 onager must be found for it. 



In view of the extension of various African types of mammals 

 past the Isthmus of Suez into Syria and Arabia, it is perhaps not 

 beyond the bounds of possibility that, if there was a second form of 

 Wild Ass in the Syrian Desert, it was some form of the African 

 Wild Ass (A sinus asinus) . A character this species has in common 

 with the Persian Onager is a shoulder stripe. The type of asinus, 

 according to Lydekker (1916, p. 37), is the domesticated ass of 

 Asia; but he also remarks (1912, p. 217) that we have no evidence 

 that its wild progenitor ever existed to the eastward of the Red Sea. 

 A different view is expressed by Tristram and by Ridgeway, who are 

 quoted below. It is perhaps now too late to secure conclusive light 

 on the subject. The following account will include both alleged 

 forms. 



Tristram says (1884, pp. 2-3) concerning "Asinus onager": "This 

 Wild Ass, the origin of the Domestic Ass, was formerly well known 

 in Arabia, and is not extinct there, though very rare. I have seen 

 this species in a state of nature frequently in the Sahara, and have 

 handled captured though not tamed individuals. It no doubt, as the 

 Arabs assure me, occasionally enters the Hauran [at the north of 

 the Syrian Desert]. Their language, as well as the Hebrew, recog- 

 nises two species of Wild Ass." 



Ridgeway (1905, pp. 52-53) writes in similar vein: "There is 

 strong evidence that the Arabs had domesticated some kind of E. 

 hemionus from a very early time, for we shall find later on that the 

 Arab tribes possessed asses from the dawn of history, and Strabo 

 when describing the littoral of the Red Sea after Eratosthenes and 

 Artemidorus, speaks of a region south of Nabataea well wooded and 

 well watered, abounding with all kinds of cattle, wild asses 

 (hemionoi), wild camels, deer, and gazelles .... As there were 

 thus both wild asses and wild camels in Arabia down to the Christian 

 era, there can be little doubt that the domestic asses and camels of 

 the Arab tribes were derived from the wild species of that region." 



Tristram also gives (1884, p. 3) the following account of "Asinus 

 hemippus": "This, rather smaller than the true Onager, and con- 

 fined to Syria, Mesopotamia and North Arabia, very rarely enters 

 the north of Palestine from the Syrian desert, but is still common 

 in Mesopotamia. It does not extend into India, but in summer herds 



