THE ANNALS 
MAGAZINE OF NATURAL HISTORY. 
[THIRD SERIES.]} 
No. 34. OCTOBER 1860. 
XXXI.—On the different Animals known as Wild Asses. 
By Epwarp Biytu *. 
At least four distinct species—if the Dshiggitai or Kyang 
(Equus hemionus of Pallas) be considered to differ specifically 
from the Koulan or Ghor-khur (E. onager vel E. asinus onager 
of Pallas)—have been confounded under the general denomina- 
tion of “wild Asses ;” and two of the four have likewise been 
designated “wild Horses”—a name to which they are less 
entitled, as all agree in exhibiting the few structural distinctions 
that characterize the Asinine sub-group apart from the Equine 
or Caballine. 
The systematic names bestowed by Pallas are so far unfortu- 
nate that they do not apply to the particular species which were 
known by them to the ancient Greeks and Romans—one of 
“which latter has only recently been discriminated by Professor 
Isidore Geoffrey St.-Hilaire, by the name Equus hemippus. This 
(from its habitat) is necessarily the Hemtonus vel Hemippus, or 
“wild Mule” of the ancients; whilst their Onager, as the name 
implies, refers as clearly to the veritable wild EL. Asinus, which 
to this day, as formerly, exists in numerous troops in north-east 
Africa, if not also in the southern parts of Arabia and the island 
of Socotra. The Hemippus of modern nomenclature is the 
representative of the present group in Syria, Mesopotamia, and 
the northern portion of Arabia, where it is designated by Col. 
Chesney the “wild Horse,” as distinguished from his “ wild 
Ass” of Southern Arabia; and it is the species figured in Wag- 
ner’s ‘ Siugethiere’ (1856), pl. 33, by the erroneous name of 
Equus asinus onager of Pallas, from a living individual formerly 
in the Knowsley menagerie. 
It should be especially noted that the great naturalist Pallas 
described his E. hemionus from personal observation of the ani- 
* From the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, 1859. 
Ann. & Mag. N. Hist. Ser. 3. Vol. vi. 16 
