2i6 THE HORSE AND ITS RELATIVES 



(the well-known shore-bird) are identical in origin, 

 but it may be pointed out that the colour of the ass 

 is grey, and not dun. 



From the reputed Eastern origin of the West 

 European names of the ass, it has been very gener- 

 ally considered that the animal itself, in its domesti- 

 cated condition, is likewise of Eastern origin, and 

 that it reached Europe by way of Asia Minor and 

 Syria, although its original home may have been 

 North-western Africa, where true wild asses are 

 alone found at the present day.^ Without denying 

 that such a view may be true, it has to be borne in 

 mind that Professor Marcellin Boule ^ is convinced 

 that certain remains of small and slenderly built 

 equines from the cavern and other superficial de- 

 posits of France and Italy pertain to the ass, as 

 distinct from the onager, whose remains are also 

 found in the same formations. How he distinguishes 

 the ass from the onager on the evidence of fossil 

 bones and teeth alone is not clearly stated ; but if 

 his conclusions be trustworthy, there would seem to 

 be a possibility of the first domestication of the ass 

 having taken place in Southern Europe. On the 

 other hand, it appears that in Homeric times the ass 

 had not become a common domesticated animal, 

 as it is mentioned but once in the Iliad, and then 

 in a simile believed to have been inserted by a later 



^ See Heyn and Stallybrass, op. ciL, p. lo. 



^ Annales de Paleontologie, vol. v. p. 1 16, 1910. 



