312 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



and its allies, no book devoted exclusively to the Mule has 

 hitherto been printed in England, although an English treatise 

 by Harvey Riley was published in New York in 1867,* and 

 another by Mr. C. L. Jones, of Columbia, Tennessee, is to be 

 found in the last volume of the Annual Reports of the Bureau of 

 Animal Industry, printed by order of the American Senate. 



Mr. Tegetmeier, by the way, is mistaken in asserting, as he 

 does in the very first sentence of his preface, that out of 4000 

 works on Horses and their utilization, about "one half" have 

 been printed in Great Britain. We have the best of reasons for 

 stating that "one quarter" only of these can be credited to Great 

 Britain, having made the original calculation upon which the 

 statement is founded (Zool. 1890, p. 121). 



It is somewhat disappointing to find nothing in the volume 

 before us on the history of the Mule and its introduction into 

 Western Europe, for on this part of the subject a most interesting 

 chapter might have been written. 



The Mulus (Greek a«/*xo ? ), or Mule, was brought into Italy, as 

 the name shows, from Greece. The Latin name was afterwards 

 used by all the nations which adopted the animal. In Varro's 

 time, just as now, carts were drawn along the high roads by 

 Mules, which were not only strong, but pleased the eye by their 

 handsome appearance. The Greeks were equally delighted with 

 the animal. f Pliny mentions a Jack-ass that was bought for the 

 stud at the price of £3229 3s. 4d., and states that in Celtiberia, a 

 province of Spain, a she Ass brought foals to the same value. 

 Varro alludes to an Ass that was sold in his time in Rome for 

 £484 7s. Qd. Plutarch in the life of Valerius Poplicola observes 

 that the price of a Sheep was about ten oboli, or nearly 13<#. of our 

 money, and that of an Ox ten times as much, or about 10s. iOd. 



Capt. Huth in his bibliography of 'Horses and Equitation' 

 (4to, 1887) mentions no less than thirty works on Mules and 

 Asses published between 1495 and 1883, and had Messrs. Teget- 

 meier and Sutherland been at the pains to look into some of these 

 they might have extracted some curious and pertinent information. 



* ' The Mule : a Treatise on the Breeding, Training, and Uses to which he 

 may be put.' By Harvey Kiley. 12mo. New York. 1867. 



I Victor Hehn, ' Wanderings of Plants and Animals from their first 

 home.' See ' Zoologist,' 1886, pp. 258—260. 



