24G On the different Animals known as wild Asses. [No. 3, 



have frequently seen alive, but never dead : in neck, head, face, and 

 tail, very like ours, only their skins are streaked, not spotted!" 

 Perhaps he alludes to occasional bars on the limbs, like the wavy 

 lines on those of the Ghor-khur which Bell seems also to refer to. 

 The wild Ass of N. Africa is not mentioned in Dr. Earth's work ; 

 but at the Meeting of the British Association for 1858, Mr. E. 

 Schlagintweit made some remarks relative to the Ghor-khur (as 

 reported in the Athenaeum) , and stated that Dr. Barth had lately 

 told him, that, according to the description which he (Mr. R. 

 Schlagintweit) had given him, " he thinks the Asses which he saw 

 in Africa identical with the Ghor-khurs of Sindh and Beluchistan." 

 This can hardly be ; and does the following notice refer to the ordi- 

 nary wild Ass of N. E. Africa ? I very strongly suspect otherwise. 

 Col. C. H. Smith remarks — " We have seen a pair of these animals 

 brought from Cairo ; they were equal in size to an ordinary mule, 

 neatly if not elegantly formed, white in colour, but silvery-grey on 

 the ridge of the back and nose, with the forehead, neck, and sides 

 of a beautiful pale ash with a tinge of purple, the mane, tail, and 

 cruciform streak black."* 



These I take to be choice specimens of the fine Levantine breed 

 of domestic Asses, such as are often represented in antique Egyp- 

 tian paintings, and always with the black crucial mark. From the 

 remotest times, it seems that two races of domestic Asses were 

 known in Egypt, and both are represented in the old paintings. In 

 modern times, Russell (in his ' Natural History of Aleppo,' p. 58,) 

 remarks, that the Levantine nations have two principal breeds of 

 Asses ; " one very large, with remarkably long ears ; the other 

 small, and much like ours in England." Chardin, again, tells us, 

 that there are two races of the domestic Ass in Persia : " Les Anes 

 du pais, qui sont lents et pesans, commes les Anes de nos pais, dont 

 ils ne se servent qu'a porter des fardeaux ; et une race d'Anes d' Ara- 

 ble, qui sont de fort jolies betes, et les premiers Anes du monde. Ils 

 out le poil poli, la teto haute, les pieds legers, les levant avec action 

 en marchant. L'on ne s'en sert que pour montures : les selles 

 qu'on leur met sont coinme des bats ronds, et plats hardessus, faites 

 dea drap ou de tapisserie, aves les etriers et le harnois. On s'assied 

 * Naturalist's Library,' XII, 312. 



