EQUID OF THE OLD WORLD 
than any of these latter are from each other. The 
Somali name of this.zebra is Fer’o. Captain Swayne 
found them in that part of Africa in droves of six. He 
further observed that the young animals were beset 
with a closer coat of hairs than their parents, and that 
the black of their skins was dingy and brownish. Like 
all zebras—and this is the greatest source of annoyance 
to the sportsman, for the animals will mob you and 
thus warn off other game—they are curious and in- 
quisitive, even impertinent in their attentions. They 
bray “‘ like an Abyssinian mule,” but they are not to be 
despised from a gastronomic point of view. This latter 
character did not impress Colonel Grant so favourably, 
for he found in their flesh a very horsey taste. 
THe Witp Ass 
Of wild asses there are certainly two species, if not 
more. In Asia we have the onager, and in Africa the 
parent of our donkey, the Nubian ass, Equus asinus, 
or, apparently better, E. africanus. In the Asiatic ass 
there is merely a long dorsal stripe running down the 
length of the back; in the African ass, besides this. 
stripe, a cross bar on the shoulders—in legend, the 
marks of the Saviour. These two forms, which are 
really quite distinct from each other in correspondence 
to the continents which they people, are subdivisible 
into other races which may or may not have the value 
and rank of “species.” In Asia we have first of all the 
hemippe (E£. hemippus) of Syria, and the thick-coated 
kiang (EZ. hemionus) of Thibet, furred to stand the 
wintry climate of its mountainous home. In Africa 
Somaliland nourishes an ass known as the Equus 
somalicus, with stripes upon the legs, but no stripe upon 
the shoulder on each side. We have, in fact, in the 
zebras and donkeys a series of stages between plain 
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