216 DOMESTICATED ANIMALS AND PLANTS 
not been a favorite except in the form of the mule, which is 
half horse." 
Two distinct species of the truly wild ass are known, the 
Asiatic (2. hemionus) and the African (£. asznus). The for- 
mer range over the more arid regions of Syria, Persia, Tibet, 
Mongolia, and western India, and the latter is indigenous to 
Abyssinia and the highlands of northeastern Africa generally. 
It is from this latter stock that the common ass of Europe 
and America is descended, through the early Egyptian domesti- 
cation. It is considered more than likely also, on account of 
their close resemblance, that the domesticated races of Asia trace 
to the same source rather than to the wild stock of their own 
country, at least so far as the historic regions of Palestine and 
the west are concerned, whose relations were from an early day 
much more intimate with the civilization of Egypt than with 
the wild and remote Asiatic regions inhabited by £. hemionus. 
Upon the whole, it cannot be said that the ass has profited 
much by domestication. Fitted by nature to exist under hard 
conditions, man has made the most of his natural faculties in 
this direction, and he has generally suffered neglect and abuse 
above that of any animal that has ever been domesticated, un- 
less it may be the Eskimo dog. Accordingly he is almost every- 
where a dull, spiritless creature, poorly fed and ill conditioned 
generally, —a walking advertisement of a hard life. 
All writers, however, both ancient and modern, agree as to 
the spirit, beauty, and fleetness of the wild ass, especially the 
African progenitor of the domesticated form. Bible history, too, 
teaches that the ass was not always regarded with the low esteem 
of the present day, but that in former times he was a general 
favorite in domestication as he was a common symbol among 
« et 
1 Strictly speaking, a “mule” is any hybrid or “cross” between distinct 
species. In common parlance, however, the term is limited to the offspring of 
the female horse and the male ass. The opposite or reciprocal cross between 
the female ass and the male horse is called the hinny. It does not differ 
materially from the mule, but is seldom seen because of the aversion to keeping 
the ass in numbers, as would be necessary to breed hinnies. 
