CHAPTER II 



DOMESTIC AND SEMI-DOMESTIC ANIMALS 



DOMESTIC ASSES. — Whilst we shall make acquaintance with 

 some examples of Wild Asses and Zebras at a later stage, it is 

 appropriate that in this section there should be found representatives 

 of this highly useful family of beasts. Horses, Asses and Zebras 

 belong to the Equidae, and these animals have, as is well known, 

 long been domesticated by mankind, and have played no unimportant 

 part in the world's history and progress. 



Their ancestors have long since become extinct, for our present- 

 day Horses and Asses are descended from creatures which at an 

 earlier period possessed on all four legs extremities containing five 

 fingers or toes, the complete hand or foot being placed flat on the 

 ground in walking. A careful study of geology reveals the fact that 

 the ancestors of the Horse came by degrees to walk on the ends of 

 the fingers and toes, and during the long ages that intervened the 

 middle toe or finger became gradually larger until the nail eventually 

 formed the hoof, whilst the remaining digits entirely disappeared. 

 Our own domesticated Horses are to be distinguished from the Asses 

 and Zebras by the comparatively small ears, a greater profusion of 

 hair upon the tail, and the appearance of what are called "chest- 

 nuts," or bare warty patches, situate on the inner side of each 

 hind-leg as well as the fore-legs. These, it is believed, are the 

 remains of recognition, or scent glands, which are also found to 

 exist in other kinds of quadrupeds. 



Prejevalski's Wild Horse — which lives in the deserts of Mongolia 

 — is a most interesting species because it represents in many ways 

 the intermediate form between the Domestic Horse and the Wild 

 Asiatic Asses. It is true that the ears of the Asses of Asia are 

 shorter and the tails are more hairy, but, unlikie the former, 

 Prejevalski's Horse is distinguished by the presence of these bare 

 warty patches, or "callosities," as they are also called, on both the 

 hind and the fore limbs. 



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