90 THE HORSE. 



dog ; and in Southern Europe, especially Spain, Italy, 

 and Malta, they are greatly superior ; while careful 

 selective breeding in Kentucky has raised their height 

 to 15 or even 16 hands. These large varieties are 

 chiefly in request for the purpose of breeding mules. 

 The milk of the ass, containing more sugar and less 

 caseine than that of the cow, has long been valued 

 as a nutritious diet for persons of weak digestion. 

 Mounteney Jephson says there are great herds of 

 donkeys in a district to the east of the Dinka country, 

 which the natives only use for milking, and not as 

 beasts of burden.* 



The ass, unlike the wild horse, is not indigenous 

 in Europe. In England, there is evidence of its 

 presence so early as the reign of the Saxon Ethelred, 

 but it does not appear to have been common till 

 after the time of Queen Elizabeth. 



Striped Members of the Asinine Group of 

 Equhxe. — These are all inhabitants of the continent 

 of Africa. The animal of this group which was first 

 known to Europeans, and was formerly considered 

 the most common, is the true zebra (Equus zebra, 

 Linn.), sometimes called the mountain zebra. It in- 

 habits the mountainous region of Cape Colony, but 

 now, owing to the advances of civilized man into its 

 somewhat restricted range, it has become very scarce, 

 * Emin Pasha and the Rebellion at the Equator, 1890, p. 96. 



