478 
MISCELLANEA. 
to the end of the siege : their owners had probably some private 
supply of water, which they preferred to share with beasts rather 
than with their dying brethren. When the Greeks first obtained 
the possession of the town, they commenced a terrible persecu¬ 
tion of the storks, driving them from the chimney tops and old 
ruined columns, where they had enjoyed, under Mahometan pro¬ 
tection, so many centuries of hereditary security. The sight of 
this barbarity is believed to have enraged the Turks even more 
than the destruction of their houses and the violation of their 
mosques.— Waddington’s Visit to Greece , p. 58. 
The Wild Ass. 
The sun was just rising over the summits of the eastern 
mountains, when my greyhound, Cooley, suddenly darted off in 
pursuit of an animal which my Persians said, from the glimpse 
they had of it, was an antelope. I instantly put spurs to my 
horse, and, followed by Sadak Bey and the mehmander, followed 
the chase. After an unrelaxed gallop of full three miles, we came 
up w ith the dog, who was then within a short stretch of the 
creature he pursued, and to my surprise, and at first vexation, I 
saw 7 it was an ass. But on a moment’s reflection, judging from 
its fleetness it was a wild one, a species little known in Europe, 
but which the Persians prize above all other animals, as an object 
of chase, I determined to approach as near to it as the very swift 
Arab I w r as on would carry me. I happened to be considerably 
before my companions, when, at a certain distance, the animal 
made a pause, and allowed me to approach wdthin pistol shot of 
him. He then darted off again with the quickness of lightning, 
capering, kicking, and sporting in his flight as if he was not 
blown in the least, and the chase w r as his pastime. 
He appeared to me to be about ten or twelve hands high; the skin 
smooth like a deer, and of a reddish colour; the belly and hinder 
parts partaking of a silvery grey; his neck was finer than that of 
a common ass, being longer, and bending like a stag’s; his legs 
beautifully slender; the head and ears seemed large in proportion to 
the gracefulness of his general form, and by them I first recognised 
that the object of my chase was of the ass tribe; the mane was 
short and black, as was also a tuft which terminated his tail: 
no line whatever ran along his back or crossed his shoulders, as 
is seen in the tame species with us. “Who hath loosed the 
bonds of the wild ass, whose house I have made the wilderness, 
and the barren land his dwelling: he scorned the multitude of 
