EQUUS ONAGEE. 237 



tinct rufescent tinge ; muzzle, breast, lower parts, arid inside of limbs white ; 

 a dark chocolate brown dorsal stripe extending from the mane to the 

 tail ; tail-tuft and short mane blackish-brown ; frequently a dark short 

 cross stripe on the shoulders, sometimes two ; and limbs usually faintly 

 barred, now and then strongly so ; a narrow dark ring over the hoof; ears 

 sandy externally, white internally, with a black tip and outer border. 



Height at shoulder 11 to 12 hands. 



The head is heavy but well formed, the ears longish, the neck rather 

 short, and the croup higher than the withers. 



It is now generally acknowledged that this wild ass is quite distinct from 

 the kiang, or wild ass of Tibet, Equus hemionus of Pallas ; yet Mr. Blyth 

 in a paper on wild asses,* stated that the two species were so alike that he 

 found it difficult to characterize them apart. " Indeed," he says, " instead 

 of being strongly distinguished apart, as has been asserted, they bear 

 so exceedingly close a resemblance that no decided specific distinction 

 has yet been pointed out satisfactorily, however probable that such distinc- 

 tion may exist." Sportsmen and travellers however who have seen both 

 the kiang and the ghorhhur, always assert their marked distinction ; and 

 Sclater in his brief paper on wild asses, states the ghorhhur to be " obviously 

 distinct from the Tibetan animal, though apparently hardly separable from 

 the next species, Asinus hemippus." Dr. J. Hooker too, asserts that the 

 kzang " differs widely from the wild ass of Persia, Sindh, and Beluchistan." 

 Perhaps some of Mr. BIyth's hesitation about the distinctness of the two 

 species arose from the mistake he made in considering the wild ass, figured 

 by Dr. Walker (from a drawing from life by Dr. Cantor), to have been a 

 ghorhhur; whereas, as Colonel Strachey pointed out, it was in reality a 

 hiari^. 



The following distinctive marks have been pointed out. The dorsal 

 stripe is generally broader on the back in the ghorhhur than in the kiang, 

 but narrower over the tail, and not extending so low down, for in the 

 kiang it is continued down to the tail tuft. In the ghorhhur too it is more 

 or less conspicuously bordered with white, which extends broadly towards 

 the tail, and along the hind margin of the buttocks. The stripe on the 

 shoulder is much more strongly marked m the ghorhhur, being often only 

 faintly visible, and not dark or blackish in the kiang. The markings on 

 the limbs, though not always present in the ghorkhur, are denied to be 



• Journ. As. Soc. 1859, p. 229, ei seq. 



