84 HOW TO BREED MULES. 



of having the size, length and room to contain the foetua 

 on the side of the female parent. 



The mule, again, which is the offspring of the male ass, 

 has the great excess of his qualities, — the incomparable 

 endurance, the patience, the faculty of subsisting and 

 keeping himself in good condition where the horse would 

 starve, and the extraordinary sure-footedness of the ass, 

 and it must be added, in a great degree, his temper, his 

 obstinacy, stubbornness and passive vice; although it ig 

 believed that, both in the ass and mule, these bad qualities 

 have been greatly fostered and increased by the cruelty 

 and neglect of ages — no such qualities being observed in 

 the beautiful, docile and tractable asses of the East, where 

 they have been from the most remote ages used as the 

 saddle animals of the superior classes — and that they may, 

 by kind and judicious treatment, be greatly modified, ii 

 not eradicated. 



The hinny, on the contrary, although hardier, more 

 patient, more enduring of privation and scanty fare than 

 the horse, is infinitely inferior, in all these qualities, both 

 to the ass and the mule; while he is at the same time 

 gentler, more tractable, and nearer to the horse in temper, 

 — strong arguments, it will be observed, for seeking inva- 

 riably to have the qualities of the blood, temper, courage, 

 spirit, on the side of the sire, those of form and size on 

 that of the dam. 



Both the mule and hinny are clearly modified asses, — 

 that is to say, they have both more in their composition oi 

 the ass than of the horse, but the proportion of that mart 

 depends on the male, and not on the female parent. It 

 appears that the vital energy and power of transmitting 

 organization is stronger in the ass than in the horse, prob- 

 ably because he is entirely in-bred, less changed by domoa- 

 tication, and nearer to his natural condition than the more 



