294 



THE KOOMRAH. 



Equus Jiippagrus^ Nobis. 

 PLATE XVI. 



THIS animal we regard as a distinct species of 

 Equus, exclusively confined to the northern half of 

 Africa, and, as far as it is yet known, nowhere 

 abundant; from its somewhat equivocal structure, 

 shyness, and mountain residence, though known to 

 the ancients, a certain mystery has continued to 

 hang around its history. In the writings of Hero- 

 dotus, an undescribed animal, by him denominated 

 Barges^ we may suspect to be no other than the 

 Bourra of Koldagi mentioned by Riippel, * and 

 that they are the same as Oppian's Hippagrus. 

 The two last mentioned animals being brown, horn- 

 less, and maned, characters completely applicable 

 to the Koomrah, and only partially observable in 

 cloven-footed ruminants, which are confounded with 

 this Equine species, both in the notices of the an- 

 cients and the tales of the moderns. 



The Koomrah, in Northern Africa, is held to be 

 a rare animal, a species of monster-mule between a 

 mare and a bull, similar to the produce of the same 

 kind known in Europe by the name of Hippotaurus, 

 which was believed to be a possible creature down 

 to the middle of the last century, when the real 



* We beg to refer the reader to what is said of tkis species 

 in the article on wild horses. 



