20 MULE. Class I. 



we prevail on our countrymen to consider this 

 animal in the light its useful qualities merit, 

 and pay due attention to its breaking, they might 

 with success form it for the saddle, the draught, 

 or the burden. The size and strength of our 

 breed is at present so improved by the impor- 

 tation of the Spanish male asses, that we shall 

 soon have numbers that may be adapted to each 

 of those uses. Persons of the first quality in 

 Spain are drawn by them ; for one of which 

 (as Mr. Clarke informs us *) fifty or sixty gui- 

 neas is no uncommon price ; nor is it surprizing, 

 if we consider how far they excel the horse in 

 draught, in a mountanous country ; the mule 

 being able to tread securely where the former 

 can hardly stand. 



This brief account may be closed with the 

 general observation, that neither mules or the 

 spurious offspring of any other animal generate 

 any farther : all these productions may be look- 

 ed on as monsters ; therefore nature, to preserve 

 the original species of animals entire and pure, 

 wisely stops, in instances of deviation, the powers 

 ©f propagation. 



* Letters on the Spanish natimi 



