Weeettaec 
tote eam 
KINDS OF HORSES 
by the fact that it is now, and has been since at latest 
the year 1878, extinct. Before considering the onager, 
it will be useful to enquire how far asses are to be dis- 
tinguished from horses. To differentiate the domestic 
horse from its brother in harness is easy for the most 
un-zoological of observers. But Prjewalski’s wild 
“horse,” and the Celtic pony, land us in difficulties. 
The wild horse has a donkey’s tail for part of the year 
and the typical horse’s tail haired up to the root for the 
restof the season. The Celtic pony has the single pair 
of “chestnuts,” only those of the fore limbs, which 
otherwise distinguish horses from asses; for in the 
domestic horse and in Prjewalski’s there are also chest- 
nuts on the hind limbs. Furthermore, we cannot regard 
striping as an exclusive possession of the donkey tribe, 
for traces of cross bars appear again and again in the 
most flagrantly domestic of horses, especially after 
crossing has had its influence. The onager is very 
generally, if not absolutely invariably, to be viewed at 
the Zoo, and a handsome beast it is. It is no use, asa 
rule, to satisfy oneself concerning the appearance of 
some rare beast by the observation of stuffed specimens 
only. A stuffed animal is, especially was in past days, 
apt to be as like its living descendants as the self- 
made man is to the Apollo of Belvidere or to the Faun 
of Praxiteles. 
Its hues are of the desert, and it shares them with the 
jerboa and the lion. It may be observed incidentally 
that popular notions of a desert, derived in all proba- 
bility from illustrated Bibles, of the kind that come out 
in sixpenny parts, would define it as a tract of particu- 
larly yellow sand with an oasis in the foreground and 
a clump of Arabs in the middle distance. Deserts are 
not all of this plan of coloration. Mr. Scott Elliot has 
figured an African “‘ desert’ which presents the appear- 
ance of a charming English woodland scene, not remark- 
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