52-4 Mr. E. I. Pocock o« the 



1884, appears to belong to the same type, altlioujih the 

 general tint is considerably richer fawn, as if a Persian 

 Onager had formed the model for the coloration. 



These Eastern Soudan asses differ from ordinary domestic 

 asses in the sharp contrast between the white of the legs 

 and the greyish fawn of the head, neck, and body. In this 

 characteristic, aj^art from the practical absence of markings 

 from the legs, they resemble the Somaliland race (£*. asinus 

 somaliensis) . 1'hey also resemble tiie latter and differ at 

 all events from the majority of English domestic asses, 

 unless canescence or partial albinism has supervened, in 

 having scarcely any black or brown on tiie ear, except at 

 the tip and on the margin. As a matter of actual fact, there 

 is a certain amount of clouding on tiie lower half of the ear 

 above the occiput, at least in some specimens. It is present, 

 for instance, in the examples of E. a. ofiicanus from 

 l^akheila and oi E. a. somaliensis from Somaliland, described 

 by Mr. Lydekker, but was either unnoticed by this author 

 or not considered worth mentioning. Mr. de Winton also 

 says nothing about it in his description of the specimen of 

 E. a. ajficanus from Yalalub ; and Heuglin is similarly 

 silent on this matter in the diagnosis of E. a. tceniopus. 

 From reading the descriptions of these specimens, indeed, 

 one would infer the entire back of the ear, apart from the 

 tip, to be the same tint us the head. 



In ordinary domestic asses, in such, at least, as adhere to 

 the greyish coloration of the wild forms hitherto mentioiied, 

 the legs are, as a rule at all events, of the same colour as 

 the body, or nearly so, and are very commonly indeed 

 indistinctly barred with black. Moreover the base of the ear 

 is almost always marked with a large black or dark brown 

 patch. So constant a feature in domestic asses is this patch 

 on the ear that it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that 

 it has been inherited from their ancestral form. If this be 

 so, that ancestral form was not E. asinus ofricanits, nor 

 E. asinus tceniopus* , nor E. asinus somaliensis^ in which the 

 ears are decidedly black or brown behind only at the tip, the 

 basal patch being evanescent. 



* In the P. Z. S. 1862, p. 164, Dr. Sclater records " Asinus tceniopus " 

 from Abyssinia, his inforaiation being based upon a specimen then living' 

 in the Jardiu des Plantes which had been acquired by the French Consul 

 at ^Massouah. Through the kindness of Dr. Sclater I hare been able to 

 examine a coloured drawing of this animal, dated Paris, 1860. It has a 

 long shoulder-stripe and a continuous spinal stripe and as many stripes 

 on the legs as are present in the example of E. asinus soinaliensis now 

 living in the Zoological Gardens. It thus closely resembles the form 

 Heuglin described as " Asinus ttsniopus " ; but the legs are darker, beins 

 hardly ligliter e\temally than the body. 



