196 VERTEBRATA. MAMMALIA. 



absence of callosities on the hind legs, the line down 

 the back, and the tendency to a striped, and not a 

 spotted colouring, are the distinctions of the Asses. 

 The patient endurance of hunger and blows, the 

 hardiness of constitution, the sober temperance, which 

 mark the common Ass (A. Vulgaris), together with 

 the ease with which it is reared, render it peculiarly 

 the servant of the poor. Much of its inferiority, 

 its obstinacy, its proverbial stupidity, is due to its 

 harsh servitude : the Asses of Spain and the East 

 are far superior to ours in size and docility ; and 

 the Wild Ass, the undoubted original of our own, 

 has the fleetness, the intelligence, and the indomit- 

 able love of liberty of the Wild Horse. 



The Asses of Southern Africa are remarkable for 

 the exceeding beauty and regularity with which 

 their colours are distributed in transverse parallel 

 stripes or bands, forming fine contrasts of hue. The 

 Quagga (A. Quaccha), and the Dauw, or Mountain 

 Zebra (A. Montanus), have dark-brown bands on 

 a delicate bay ground; while the Zebra (A. Zebra) 

 has the finer contrast of black upon a pure white, 

 the stripes extending in beautiful waves over the 

 head, face, ears, and legs. These are much more 

 graceful in form than the common Ass, and the ears 

 have not that unseemly size, which give that animal 

 an air of so much stupidity. They are exceedingly 

 wild, violent, and even fierce. The farmers of the 

 Cape are frequently in the habit of driving a troop 

 of Quaggas to the brink of a precipice, when those 

 animals rush over the declivities, like the Bisons 



