446 THE DOMESTIC ASS. 



" a song of world without end." The same author further 

 shows the nobleness of the ass, by declaring that 

 " on it is ne'er engendered 



The hateful vermin that doth teare the skin, 

 And to the body make their passage in ;" 



but unfortunately for this notion, which Goldsmith and other 

 modern authors repeat, Redi has figured a Pediculus Asini in his 

 Experimenta circa Generationem Insectorum (1686), tab. XXI. 



The ass is an excellent swimmer. In March 1816, an ass 

 belonging to Captain Dundas, then at Malta, was shipped on 

 board the Ister frigate, bound from Gibraltar to that island. 

 During a storm at sea, all the live stock was thrown overboard. 

 The ass swam to shore at Point de Gat, and made his way from 

 thence to Gibraltar, a distance of two hundred miles, through 

 a mountainous country, and at length made his appearance at 

 the door of the stable he had last inhabited. 



In a wild state the ass feeds chiefly on the most saline and 

 bitter plants of the desert, as the Kalis, Atriplices, Chenopodium, 

 &c. Cornelius Agrippa compares the domestic ass to a scholar, 

 inasmuch as it not only patiently endures penury, labour, 

 and severe criticism, but it lives on little food, and is content 

 with any sort, be it lettuces, brambles, or thistles. Pennant 

 says, it is extremely fond of the plantain. Bryant says, it has 

 the faculty of discovering distant waters by the smell 5 but this 

 I apprehend is only when it inhales the saline emanations from 

 those brackish waters which it prefers, at least in the wild state. 

 The domestic ass is more particular in the choice of water than 

 food, and water which a horse will gladly drink is often not 

 clean enough for an ass. 



Thersites. "Would the fountain of your mind were clear again, that I might 

 water an ass at it." 



(Troilus and Cressida, Act III. Scene 3.) 



The female is much attached to her young, which is a sprightly 

 little creature in its youth, but soon assumes the gravity of its 

 parent when old enough to stand blows, and other maltreat- 

 ment. Obscure dark bands are frequently observable on the 



