Hybridity in Animats. 4 
from Columella, the remark of Mago, a Carthagenian agricul- 
turalist, that in his country the fecundity of the mule was a fre- 
quent event, although it was regarded as a prodigy in Greece and 
e adds, that these mixed mules do not cross again with 
each _. but only with the primitive species that has given 
them b: 
The ane ancients gave the name ginnus to the offspring of the 
mule with the mare, which appears to have been a common ani- 
mal among the Romans, who called it also the Little mule, (par- 
yum mulum. 
Prevost and Dumas, repeating the experiments of Lieuenheck, 
assure us that the sterility of these mules in northern climates, 
depends on an absence of spermatic animalcules; but the latter 
must be present in hot countries, to explain the phenomena of 
reproduction. 
he Hinny, on the other hand, is the offspring of the horse 
and a female ass—Bardo ex equo et asind—an animal of a very 
refractory disposition, and little esteemed, either in ancient or 
modern times ; nor ~— I been able to obtain any facts in relation 
to its reproductivene 
in, when a sale derived from the cross “ between the she 
ass and the male onager, (Equus onager,) is allowed to couple 
with the mare, the offspring is more docile than either — and 
unites the beauty of form and gentle nce of the 
with the strength and swiftness of his grandsire ;’’} Soret the 
ancients preferred the anager the sonmstiasthe production of 
mules, and Mr. Gliddon informs ‘me this opinion is se paige in 
Egypt, at the present day. 
‘The Baron Cuvier informs us that. he had seen the cross be 
tween the ass and zebra, and between the female zebra and 
horse.$ 
~ 
The ass is not the proximate species of the genus Equus, when 
compared with the horse; but that place is held, as Cuvier re- 
marks, by the dziggetai of Ais »( ot; hemionus. ) And two dis- 
Eeceuhet naturalists, Mr. Be r. Gray, are even disposed 
to remove the ass to a separate ‘een Without passing Jue 
