Beeton's book of poultry and domestic animals - Thurman Lodge ...

TWB DONKST.
THE DONKEY.
For so long a period has this patient and hard-working ani*
msd been domesticated among us, that its original progenitors
seem to have become quite extinct. There are at the present
time animals known as " wild " asses, and " wild " enough they
are, in the ordinary sense of the term ; but in almost all such
cases they are the descendants of domesticated creatures which
have escaped from captivity, or mules of the wild and domestic
ass. The wild ass is found both in mountainous districts and
in plains ; vast troops roam over the great Asiatic deserts,
migrating according to the season,—in summer, as far northward
as the Ural ; in winter, southward to the borders of India.
It has a short mane, of dark woolly hair ; and a stripe of dark
bushy hair runs along the ridge of the back from the mane to
the tail. It has longer legs, and carries its head higher, than
the domestic ass. It associates in herds, and, like the horse,
has a leader. In Persia it is one of the chief objects of the
chase, and when hunted down it is eaten, its flesh being considered
as great a dainty as is venison among us. It is, however,
by no means easy to hunt down. Strange as it may
seem to us who have seen the ass in no other guise than a
forlorn drudge, as a free animal it is graceful in shape as the
antelope, nimble as the Bavarian chamois, and fleeter than
the Uthe-limbed Arabian steed. So it is, however ; and out of
at least twenty recorded instances testifying to the above facts,
the following, given by Sir Thomas Ker Porter, will serve :
" My greyhound suddenly started off in pursuit of an animal,
which my Persians said, from the glimpse they had of it, was
an antelope. I instantly set spurs to my horse, and with my
attendants gave chase. After an unrelaxed gallop of fall three
miles we came upon the dog, who was then within a short
stretch of the creature he pursued, and to my surprise, and at
first vexation, I saw it to be an ass. Upon a moment's reflec-
tion, however, judging from its fleetness that it must be a wild
one,—a creature little known in Europe, but which the Persians
prize as an object of the chase,—I determined on approaching
it, as closely as the very swift Arab on which I was mounted
would carry me ; but the single instant of checking my horse to
consider, had given our game such a head of us that, notwithstanding
all our speed, we could not recover our ground on
him. I, however, happened to be considerably before my
companions, when, at a certain distance, the animal, in its
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