THE HOOFED MAMMALS. 129 



According to a n3wspaper report, recent experiments in the Transvaal have 

 been "successful, in so far as the training is concerned, but the trials with these 

 animals have wofully disappointed those who fancied they might be advan- 

 tageously utilised for draught' purposes. Most people in South Africa, in 

 districts where zebras abound, have hitherto regarded these animals as im- 

 pervious to that human control that would be necessary to render them 

 rehable between the shafts or in traces, and it is only lately that efforts 

 have been directed towards their domestication. Teams of them, compris- 

 ing ten or more, have been broken in and ' inspanned ' to coaches and other 

 vehicles, by way of testing their amenability to the bit and the whip, and 

 their behaviour in harness has been in some respects most satisfactory and 

 promising, though their peculiarities sometimes rather out-mule the mule, 

 their shyness being particularly pronounced, and their disinclination to start 

 gently another characteristic, resulting often in jumps out of harness, or 

 other antics, such as those practised by a jibbing or highly-nervous horse. 

 These faults, however, cure themselves in time, simply by the punitive 

 lessons they teach the zebras ; but the stamina of the animals is not of a 

 nature to stand the strain of either the lessons so acquired, or the burden of 

 the draught for any length of time, and looking at the conformation of the 

 zebra one is hardly surprised. Resembling the mule in many points, he yet 

 lacks that essential inherited by the latter from both his progenitors — tough- 

 ness of bone and muscle, prescribed by generations of usage as a beast of 

 burden. It is admitted by all who have seen zebras in harness that, from a 

 spectacular point of view, they are worth the trouble spent upon their train- 

 ing, and as mounts for children they are certainly more respectable-looking 

 and dignified than the donkey, and in chaises, too, they would probably be 

 found equal to very light work. As draught animals, in the ordinary sense 

 of the term, however, they are not successes. Whether a breed could be 

 manufactured from the zebra, in the same way as the mule has been, and 

 whether with similar success, are questions that an intermingling of blood at 

 the present time might satisfactorily answer in the future." 



The fourth species is the quagga (B. quagga) of South Africa, which forms 

 a connecting link between the others and the asses, having the head, neck, 

 shoulders, and the middle of the body striped, but the hind-quarters, tail, 

 and limbs uniformly coloured. This animal always had a very restricted dis- 

 tribution, and is now nearly, if not quite, exterminated. 



The leading characters by which the uniformly-coloured asses differ from 

 the horse have been already pointed out. The Asiatic wild ass (E. hcjniomis) 

 is a variable species, of an isabelline rufous tint, with a dark, longitudinal 

 stripe down the spine, but none across the withers, and comparatively small 

 ear.s. Its three leading varieties are the Syrian wild ass, the onager of Persia, 

 Baluchistan, the Punjab, Sind, and Kach, and the kiang of Mongolia and 

 the Tibetan highlands, which is the largest and most horselike of the three. 

 All these wild asses inhabit more or less completely desert districts, and are 

 exceedingly fleet of foot, passing over the roughest ground at a gallop. The 

 African wild ass (E. asinus), from Abyssinia, Nubia, and Somaliland, differs 

 from the preceding by its greyer coloration, much longer ears, and the general 

 presence of a dark stripe across the withers. It is evidently the ancestor of 

 the domestic breed, but its speed and endurance must not be judged by those 

 of the latter. The late Sir Samuel Baker wrote that "those who have seen 

 donkeys only in their civilised state can have no conception of the beauty of 

 the wild or oricinal animal. It is the perfection of activity and courage. It 

 10 



