THE DJIGGETAI. 319 



in Pliny, likewise assigns Cappadocia as its dwell- 

 ing : we hear it is still abundant in Turkistan be- 

 yond the Oxus, and all describe it as prodigiously 

 fleet and cautious, yet possessed of the same curio- 

 sity which decoys the wild ass. They live in small 

 herds, or large families of females and young ani- 

 mals, headed by a male. They neigh with a deeper 

 and a louder voice than a horse, and are much 

 hunted by the Mongoles and Tunguse for their 

 flesh. 



The assertion of Pallas, and the common opinion 

 concerning their indomitable nature, is founded in 

 error; such a conclusion is in fact an assumption 

 that all animals have been created on invariable 

 conditions of existence, and that all their actions 

 are simple results of a mechanical instincJt, according 

 witli their organic structure, and therefore without 

 the exercise of any degree of intelligence ; for, as 

 Frederick Cuvier justly observes, to what purpose 

 would intelligence exist in beings who did not pos- 

 sess faculties for distinguishing circumstances favour- 

 able or hurtful to their existence? To a certain 

 extent such beings do not exist among mammifora? ; 

 to find them, we must descend much lower in the 

 scale of animal life : it is certainly not the case 

 with the rhinoceros, the tiger, or the hyasna; nor 

 is it applicable to the Hemionus, for the accounts 

 of this animal serving in a domesticated state, as 

 already mentioned in Isaiah and Herodotus, is con- 

 firmed by the late M. Duvaucel, whose figure, here 

 reproduced, is of a male individual, which it appears 



