Ass

( Equus asĭnus ), a species of the horse genus, supposed by Darwin to have sprung from the wild variety ( Asinus tœniŏpus ) found in Aby in i a; by some writers to be a descendant of the onăger or wild a , inhabiting the mountainous deserts of Tartary, .; and by others to have descended from the kiang or djiggetai ( A. hem iŏnus ) of South-Western Asia. The a was used in Egypt long before the horse, and it played an important part in Homeric Greece. According to Aristotle, however, it was unknown in his time in Pontus, Scythia, and in the land of the Celts. The a seems to have been introduced into England in the days of Ethelred, but did not become common before the end of the seventeenth century. Both in colour and size the a is exceedingly variable, ranging from dark grey and reddish brown to white, and from the size of a Newfoundland dog in North India to that of a good-sized horse. In the south-western countries of Asia and in Egypt, in some districts of Southern Europe, as in Spain, and in Kentucky and Peru, great attention has been paid to selection and interbreeding, with a result no le remarkable than in the case of the horse. Thus in Syria there appear to be four distinct breeds: a light and graceful animal used by ladies, an Arab breed reserved for the saddle, an a of heavier build in use for ploughing and draft purposes, and the large Damascus breed. The efforts made to raise the deteriorated British breed have only been partially succe ful. The male a is mature at two years of age, the female still earlier. The she-a carries her young eleven months. The teeth of the young a follow the same order of appearance and renewal as those of the horse. The life of the a does not usually exceed thirty years. It is in general much healthier than the horse, and is maintained in this condition by a smaller quantity and coarser quality of food; it is superior to the horse in its ability to carry heavy burdens over the most precipitous roads, and is in no respect its inferior in intelligence, despite the reputation for stupidity which it has borne from very ancient times. The skin is used as parchment to cover drums, ., and in the East is made into shagreen. The hybrid offspring of the horse and the female a is the hinny, that of the a and the mare is the mule; but the latter is by far the larger and more useful animal. A es' milk, long celebrated for its sanative qualities, more closely resembles that of a woman than any other. It is very similar in taste, and throws up an equally fluid cream, which is not convertible into butter.