14 



THE AFRICAN WILD ASS. 



horse. The stud Ijook of Mr. C. L. Sutherland, who is so 

 greatly interested in ass and mule breeding, testifies to 

 the fact that it is a month longer, and in some instances 

 even more. Thus, a Spanish jenny that visited a Poitou 

 jack on July 7, 1676, foaled a jack on July 23, 1877.* 

 Another distinction between the ass and the horse is fhat 

 twin births are not uncommon in the case of the former, 

 but are much rarer in the latter. 



A singular variety of the African ass was foaled in 

 the Gardens of the Zoological Society in 1892. The 

 female parent was purchased by the society in 1881, 

 and produced her first foal in June, 1883 ; the other 

 parent being not an African, but the variety of the 

 Asiatic ass known as the Hemippe {S. hemionus). This 

 offspring was of a reddish colour, similar to that of the 

 male parent, the female being of the usual grey. This 

 half-bred was exhibited at the Agricultural Show at 

 Windsor, in 1889. It was a vicious, untamed animal, and 

 was sold to Mr. G-uy, and is now in the Gardens of the 

 Zoological Society at Dublin. In the report of that Society 



* As this difference in the gestation of the two species is so 

 generally ignored, I have thought it desirable to adduce the following 

 definite instances of the period of gestation in the ass (the result iu 

 six cases of a single service) from the stud boot of Mr. Sutherland : 



The above were all large iennies of foreign breeds, such as the 

 Maltese, Spanish, Poitou, and their crosses, which belonged to Mr. 

 Sutherland. They were put to large foreign jacks with the above results. 



