172 THE HISTOET Or ANIMALS. [fi. VI. 



beat her and drive her about. She foals in the twelfth 

 month, and generally produces one foal, for this is their 

 nature, though cases of twin births have occurred. If an 

 ass mounts upon a mare, he destroys her foetus, as I observed 

 before. But the horse does not destroy the foetus of the 

 ass, if the mare has been impregnated by a he ass. 



2. The pregnant female has milk at the end of ten months. 

 After parturition, she will admit the male on the seventh 

 day, and is very easily impregnated at that period. She 

 will also receive it afterwards. If she does not produce 

 young before losing her marking teeth, she can never be 

 impregnated all the rest of her life. She does not like men 

 to be witnesses of her parturition, nor will she produce her 

 young in the day time ; but when it is dark she retires, and 

 so produces her young. She continues to procreate during 

 her whole life, if she has begun before losing her marking 

 teeth. The ass lives more than thirty years, and the female 

 longer than the male. When a horse copulates with an ass, 

 or a he ass with a mare, abortion is more frequent than be- 

 tween congeners, a horse with a mare, or two asses together. 

 "When the horse and ass are mixed together, the period of 

 gestation follows from the male parent. I mean to say that 

 it takes the same time as if the parents had been congeners ; 

 but in size, form, and strength the produce of their union 

 generally resembles the female parent. 



3. If the union takes place frequently, and sufficient time 

 is not allowed to intervene, the female soon becomes barren. 

 For which reason those who attend to this business do not 

 permit them to Ifave continual intercourse, but interpose a 

 proper interval. The mare will not admit the he ass, nor 

 the she ass the horse, unless the he ass has been suckled by 

 a mare. They are careful, therefore, to admit only those 

 asses which they call hippothelse, i.e. asses which have been 

 suckled by a mare. These copulate by force in the pastures, 

 like horses. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 



1. THE oreus (mule) mounts and copulates after shedding 

 the first teeth, and when seven years old is able to engender ; 

 and the ginnus is produced when he mounts upon a mare. 

 After this he no longer continues to copulate. The female 



