62 A «SES. CHAPi n 



The Ass. 



Four species of Asses, besides three of zebras, have been de- 

 scribed by naturalists ; but there can now be little doubt that 

 our domesticated animal is descended from one alone, namely 

 the Asinus tseniojpus of Abyssinia. 39 The ass is sometimes 

 advanced as an instance of an animal domesticated, as we know 

 by the Old Testament, from an ancient period, which has 

 varied only in a very slight degree. But this is by no means 

 strictly true ; for in Syria alone there are four breeds ; 40 first, a 

 light and graceful animal, with an agreeable gait, used by ladies • 

 secondly, an Arab breed reserved exclusively for the saddle- 

 thirdly, a stouter animal used for ploughing and various pur- 

 poses ; and lastly, the large Damascus breed, with a peculiarly 

 long body and ears. In this country, and generally in Central 

 Europe, though the ass is by no means uniform in appearance 

 it has not given rise to distinct breeds like those of the horse. 

 This may probably be accounted for by the animal being kept 

 chiefly by poor persons, who do not rear large numbers, nor 

 carefully match and select the young. For, as we shall see in 

 a future chapter, the ass can with ease be greatly improved in 

 size and strength by careful selection, combined no doubt with 

 good food; and we may infer that all its other characters would be 

 equally amenable to selection. The small size of the ass in 

 England and Northern Europe is apparently due far more to 

 want of care in breeding than to cold ; for in Western India, 

 where the ass is used as a beast of burden by some of the lower 

 castes, it is not much larger than a Newfoundland dog, " being 

 generally not more than from twenty to thirty inches high." 41 



The ass varies greatly in colour ; and its legs, especially the 

 fore-legs, both in England and other countries — for instance, in 

 China — are occasionally barred transversely more plainly than 

 those of dun-coloured horses. With the horse the occasional 

 appearance of leg-stripes was accounted for, through the principle 

 of reversion, by the supposition that the primitive horse was 



39 Dr. Sclater, in ' Proc. Zoolog. Soc.,' 41 Col. Sykes' Oat. of Mammalia, 

 1862, p. 164. 'Proc. Zoolog. Soc.,' July 12th, 1831. 



40 W.C.Martin, 'History of the Horse,' Williamson, 'Oriental Field Sports,' 

 1845, p. 207. vol. ii., quoted by Martin, p. 206. 



