WILD HORSES IN AUSTRALIA.—In Australia, as well as in America, the Horses imported by the colonists have escaped into the wilds, and reverted to their feral condition. They are known as “Brumbies,” and are a serious inconvenience to the stock farmer, because they entice away his Horses and spoil his carefully selected breeds. The animal develops wonderful sagacity in avoiding the sportsman, and his keenness of scent and vigilance are certainly as great as in any other animal which seeks in flight safety from man. These Brumbies were described by Anthony Trollope, himself an ardent Fox-hunter, as being perfect marvels of ugliness. These animals are found in enormous numbers in some districts. In 1875, for example, no less than seven thousand are stated to have been shot in one station in New South Wales, still leaving plenty behind to perpetuate the race.
THE ASS.—Four species of Asses and three of Zebras are described by naturalists, but our domestic animal is probably descended from one alone; the Asinus teniopus of Abyssinia. In Great Britain, and generally in Central Europe, the Ass has not given rise to distinct breeds like those of the Horse, a fact which may be accounted for, as Mr. Darwin remarks, by the animal being kept by poor persons who do not carefully match and select the young. Its small size in England and Northern Europe is probably due far more to want of care in breeding than to cold, for in Western India it is not much larger than a Newfoundland Dog, being usually not more than from twenty to thirty inches high.
DOMESTIC ASS.
The Ass varies greatly in colour, and its legs, especially the fore legs, are sometimes transversely barred; a fact which may be explained on the hypothesis of the reappearance of the attributes of the parental form. “The stripes,” Mr. Darwin says, “are believed to occur most frequently and to be plainest on the legs of the Domestic Ass during early youth, as is apparently likewise the case with the Horse. The shoulder-stripe, which is so eminently characteristic of the species, is nevertheless variable in breadth, length, and manner of termination. I have measured a shoulder-stripe four times as broad as another, and some more than twice as long as others. In one light-grey Ass the shoulder-stripe was only six inches in length and as thin as a piece of string; and in another animal of the same colour there was only a dusky shade representing a stripe. I have heard of three white Asses—not albinoes—with no trace of shoulder or spinal stripes, and I have seen nine other Asses with no shoulder-stripe, and some of them had no spinal-stripe. Three of the nine were light greys, one a dark grey, another grey passing into reddish roan, and the others were brown, two being tinted on parts of their bodies with a reddish or bay shade. Hence we may conclude that if grey and reddish-brown Asses had been steadily selected and bred from, the shoulder-stripe would have been almost as generally and as completely lost as in the case of the Horse.”
ONAGER.
“The shoulder-stripe on the Ass is sometimes double, and Mr. Blyth has seen even three or four parallel stripes. I have observed in ten cases shoulder-stripes abruptly truncated at the lower end, with the anterior angle produced into a tapering point, precisely as has been figured in the Dun Devonshire Pony. I have seen three cases of a terminal portion abruptly and angularly bent, and two cases of a distinct, though slight, forking. In Syria, Dr. Hooker and his party observed for me no less than five instances of the shoulder-stripe being plainly forked over the fore leg. In the common Mule it is likewise sometimes forked. When Spist noticed the forking and angular bending of the shoulder-stripe, I had seen enough of the stripes in the various equine species to feel convinced that even a character so unimportant as this had a distinct meaning, and was thus led to attend to the subject. I now find that in the Asinus Burchellii and Quagga, the stripe which corresponds with the shoulder-stripe of the Ass, as well as some of the stripes on the neck, bifurcate, and that some of those near the shoulder have their extremities angularly bent backwards. The forking and angular bending of the stripes on the shoulders apparently stand in relation with the changed direction of the nearly upright stripes on the sides of the body and neck to the transverse bars on the legs. Finally, we see that the presence of shoulder-, leg- and spinal-stripes in the Horse, their occasional absence in the Ass, the occurrence of double and triple shoulder-stripes in both animals, and the similar manner in which these stripes terminate at their lower extremities, are all cases of analogous variation in the Horse and Ass. These cases are probably not due to similar conditions acting on similar constitutions, but to a partial reversion in colour to the common progenitor of these two species, as well as of the other species of the genus.”
The Asses, beside the characters above mentioned, have the upper part of the tail covered with short hairs, while the lower part terminates in a long hairy tuft; horny excrescences, or warts, exist on the fore legs alone. In England, as we have before remarked, Asses are small and without much variation, because their points have not been selected. When, however, care is taken in breeding, the result is as remarkable as in the case of the Horse. Near Cordova, according to Mr. Darwin, they are carefully bred, as much as two hundred pounds having been paid for a stallion Ass. Asses from Spain, Malta, and France have been introduced into Kentucky for the breeding of Mules, which have been raised by the care of the Kentuckians from their original size of fourteen hands to sixteen hands in height. Great prices are put on these splendid animals, one of great celebrity having been sold for over one thousand pounds. At their cattle shows, one day is given up to the exhibition of Asses.