EQUUS ONAGER. 237 



distinct rufescent tinge ; muzzle, breast, lower parts, and inside of limbs 

 white ; a dark chocolate-brown dorsal stripe extending from the mane to 

 the tail; tail-tuft and short mane blackish-brown; frequently a dark short 

 cross stripe on the shoulders, sometimes two ; and limbs usually faintly 

 barred, now and then strongly so ; a narrow dark ring over the hoof; ears 

 sandy externally, white internally, with a black tip and outer border. 



Height at shoulder 11 to 12 hands. 



The head is heavy but well-formed, the ears longish, the neck rather 

 short, and the croup higher than the withers. 



It is now generally acknowledged that this wild ass is quite distinct 

 from the kiang, or wild ass of Tibet, Equus hemionus of Pallas ; yet 

 Mr. Blyth in a paper on wild asses,* stated that the two species were so 

 alike that he found it difficult to characterize them apart. " Indeed," 

 he says, "instead of being strongly distinguished apart, as has been 

 asserted, they bear so exceedingly close a resemblance that no decided 

 specific distinction has yet been pointed out satisfactorily, however pro- 

 bable that such distinction may exist." Sportsmen and travellers, how- 

 ever, who have seen both the kiang and the ghorkhur, always assert their 

 marked distinction ; and Sclater in his brief paper on wild asses, states 

 the ghorkhur to be " obviously distinct from the Tibetan animal, though 

 apparently hardly separable from the next species, Asinus hemippus" 

 Dr. J. Hooker, too, asserts that the kiang " differs widely from the wild 

 ass of Persia, Sindh, and Beluchistan." Perhaps some of Mr. Blyth's 

 hesitation about the distinctness of the two species arose from the 

 mistake he made in considering the wild ass, figured by Dr. Walker 

 (from a drawing from life by Dr. Cantor), to have been a ghorkhur ; 

 whereas, as Colonel Strachey pointed out, it was in reality a kiang. 



The following distinctive marks have been pointed out. The dorsal 

 stripe is generally broader on the back in the ghorkhur than in the kiang, 

 but narrower over the tail, and not extending so low down, for in the 

 kiang it is continued down to the tail-tuft. In the ghorkhur too it is more 

 or less conspicuously bordered with white, which extends broadly towards 

 the tail, and along the hind margin of the buttocks. The stripe on the 

 shoulder is much more strongly marked in the ghorkhur, being often only 

 faintly visible, and not dark or blackish, in the kiang. The markings on 

 the limbs, though not always present in the ghorkhur, are denied to be 



* Journ. As. Soc. 1859, p. 229, et seq. 



