330 
THE MAMMALS OF EGYPT. 
Dr. Lyle Cummins has kindly lent the skin of a wild ass from near Kassala. 
This specimen agrees with the foregoing in every important detail. The colour 
at present is, however, yellower, but it is quite evident that this is the result of stain 
from the tanning used in preserving the skin. 
In both of these specimens the back-stripe and cross-stripe on the withers are very 
narrow, and there are no dark bars on the legs whatever. 
Baron Theodor von Heuglin has described the wild ass from the provinces of Taka 
and Berber under the name of Equus tceniopus. He says that this particular form 
was met with at the ruins of Wadi Safra, on the Atbara, and on the road from Taka 
to Suakin, and that it appears to extend northwards into the Desert of Korosko. A 
preliminary notice and description were given in the “ Fauna of the Bed Sea and Somali 
Coasts,” published in Petermann’s ‘ Mittheilungen,’ 1861, p. 19; and in the ‘Verb. 
Leopold.-Carol. Akad. Naturf.’ 1861, a coloured plate of the animal was given in a paper 
entitled “Diagnosen neuer Saugeth. aus Afrika am Bothen Meere.” In this latter 
animal, according to the description and the plate, the shoulder-stripe is broad, and 
the legs are heavily barred with irregular black bands. 
Heuglin met with another form, Avhich seems to resemble the Yalalub and Kassala 
specimens, but the locality for this is said to be the Somali Coast, To this form, 
with narrow shoulder-stripe and unbarred legs, Fitzinger applied the name Asmus 
africanus (SB. Wiss. Wien, liv. i. 1866, p. 588), a name which he had used a few years 
previously in ‘Naturg. Saug.’ iii. 1860, p. 434, without publishing any description of the 
species. It seems to me possible that Heuglin may have transposed the localities of 
the two forms, but nothing further can be said with our present knowledge. 
The Arabic for the wuld ass is ‘ Homar- ’ or ‘ Hamar el Wadi.’ 
Burckhardt and Biippell mention a valley between Assuan and Berber known as 
“ Wadi el Hamar,” and a desert called “ Homar Elwaheish,” in which wild asses were 
to be found in the first quarter of the last century. 
Dr. Anderson left the following note on the Wild Ass;— 
“ This animal is found at the foot of the Gebel Hennah, near Tokar. It is common 
in the Khor Sabbat parallel to the Khor Baraka. Captain O’Connor informs me 
that he has often seen them at the Khor Sabbat, on the plain of Tokar. A mountain 
near the Khor Baraka is called the mountain of the donkey = Gehel O'meik of the 
Hadendowahs.” 
In James Burton’s MS. in the Brit. Mus. (add. MS. 25.666) is the following note:— 
“ Wild Asses are found in the neighbourhood of Gebel Kattar in the Arabian or 
Eastern desert of Egypt inland about opposite to the island of Shadwan. One was 
seen a little further south, at Ayd, in the neighbourhood of old Keneh; the animal 
was white, with a dark line down its back. The Ababdeh Arabs turn out the tame 
females into the mountains for the purpose of having them covered by the wild males. 
