THE HUNTING OF THE ONAGER 
able for sand and Arabs in the offing. In Central Asia, 
however, the desert is generally of the more popular 
character, and here it is that onagers frequent the stony 
ground and offer sport to the horseman. This sport is 
' carried on, among other places, in the very appropriately 
named ‘‘ Runn of Cutch,” and it is said that the wild ass 
is not so fleet as legend would have it. In twenty-five 
miles the wild ass can be run down by an expert rider. 
It is not of much use economically when it is run down. 
This wild ass and its very near relative, the kiang, 
suffer from the same curiosity that marks the zebra. 
The fondness of the costermonger’s donkey for thistles 
and its resolute voice need not move us to vulgar mirth ; 
we may, in fact, be as sentimental over the facts as 
Sterne. The two characters indicate in a most inter- 
esting way the past history of the domestic ass. Thistles 
are of the kind of plants which stony localities produce, 
arid and thick skinned, to preserve what little moisture 
is necessary to their existence. That the donkey pre- 
fers them now is surely a sign of former life in stony 
places. So, too, its dislike of water, and its habit of 
rolling in the dust. The voice is held to be a danger 
signal to its fellows. It always reminds us of the final 
notes in the roar of that animal whose skin the donkey 
once wore. 
THE WaArRT Hoc 
To represent the pig tribe we shall select this animal, 
which is entirely African in habitat, and is to be divided 
into two distinct species of which the technical names 
are Phacechoerus aethiopicus and P. africanus (formerly 
known as P. Aeliant). The wart hog is with some justice 
described as a “‘superlatively ugly’ animal. Its pe- 
culiarities of visage, to use a milder term, are mainly 
due to various excrescences upon the face, almost if not 
quite of the nature of horns. A pair of these in front of 
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