THE MULE. 23 



take after the mare, and have manes and tails of the 

 same color. Those that take after the jack generally 

 have black stripes round their legs, black manes and 

 tails, and black stripes down their backs and across their 

 shoulders, and are more hardy and better animals. I 

 have frequently seen men, in purchasing a lot of mules, 

 select those of a certain color, fancying that they were the 

 hardiest, and yet the animals would be widely different 

 in their working qualities. Yon may take a black 

 mule, black mane, black hair in his ears, black at the 

 flank, between the hips or thighs, and black under the 

 belly, and put him alongside of a similar sized mule, 

 marked as I have described above, say light, or what is 

 called mealy-colored, on each of the above-mentioned 

 parts, put them in the same condition and flesh, of 

 similar age and soundness, and, in many cases, the mule 

 w^ith the light-colored parts will wear the other out. 



It is very different with the white mule. He is gen- 

 erally soft, and can stand but little hardship. I refer 

 particularly to those that have a white skin. Next to 

 the white and cream, we have the iron-grey mule. This 

 color generally indicates a hardy mule. We have now 

 twelve teams of iron-gray mules in the park, which 

 have been doing hard work every day since July, 1865 ; 

 it is now January, 1866. Only one of these mules has 

 become "unfit for service, and that one was injured by 

 being kicked by his mate. All our other teams have 

 had more or less animals made unfit for service and 

 exchanged. 



In speaking of the color of mules, it must not be 

 inferred that there are no mules that are all of a color 



