40 ANATOMICAL CONSIDERATIONS. 



Structure, and which would have consigned the horse to the knacker's 

 yard. Yet the animals thus maimed were working up to the date of 

 purchase ; the inability to move was attributed to the obstinacy which 

 is generously supposed to characterize the ill-treated animal, and the 

 blows fell heavier in proportion as its actual condition should have 

 appealed to human forbearance. 



r^^^ 



STABLED FOB THE NIQHI. 



To properly comprehend the sufferings of the quadruped, we must 

 know the country whence it is derived, and be acquainted with the soil 

 it is fitted to inhabit. The wild ass dehghts in the sandy desert of a 

 tropical region, and for the products of such a locality a taste is, by the 

 English representative, retained. It lives and thrives upon the spon- 

 taneous herbage of the arid waste. The heat, under which other forms 

 of life appear to languish, fills the donkey with animation. The com- 

 parative size of its intestines fit it to store away that amount of water 

 which in the land of its nativity is proverbially scarce. 



The donkey in England is dragged into a wintry climate, rendered 

 more inhospitable by the low temperature which is the most prom- 

 inent characteristic of the country. In cold and in wet, the native of a 

 tropical soil must lead a miserable existence. In Britain, however, it 



