THE ARCADIAN DONKEY. 



donkeys, with their tufted tails and shaggy 

 hair, the middle terms being chiefly found 

 in the northern plains of Asia. Now, our 

 horses, I take it, are the descendants of 

 those original horse-and-donkey-like creatures 

 which took to the grassy meadows, and so 

 waxed fat, and kicked, and developed ex- 

 ceedingly ; while our donkeys, I imagine, 

 are the poor, patient offspring of those less 

 lucky brothers or cousins which were pushed 

 by degrees into the deserts and arid hills, 

 and there grew accustomed to a very sparse 

 diet of the essentially prickly and thorny 

 shrubs which always inhabit such spots, just 

 as gorse and heather inhabit our British 

 uplands. That is why the donkey thrives 

 so excellently to this day on thistles and 

 nettle-tops : they represent the ancestral 

 food of his kind for many generations. 

 Certainly, at the present time, wherever we 

 find horses wild it is in broad, grass-clad 

 plains, or steppes, or pampas ; wherever we 

 find donkeys, or donkey-like animals, wild, 



