Vulgar words in Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication (Page 1)

This book at a glance

ass x 32
bastard x 1
boner x 2
            

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~   ~   ~   Sentence 17   ~   ~   ~

With the common ass, as the legs of the wild progenitor are almost always striped, we may feel assured that the occasional appearance of such stripes in the domestic animal is a case of simple reversion.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 165   ~   ~   ~

But now let us turn to the result of crossing the horse and ass.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 172   ~   ~   ~

Many years ago I saw in the Zoological Gardens a curious triple hybrid, from a bay mare, by a hybrid from a male ass and female zebra.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 175   ~   ~   ~

As the zebra has such a conspicuously striped body and legs, it might have been expected that the hybrids from this animal and the common ass would have had their legs in some degree striped; but it appears from the figures given in Dr. Gray's 'Knowsley Gleanings' and still more plainly from that given by Geoffroy and F. Cuvier, 34 that the legs are much more conspicuously striped than the rest of the body; and this fact is intelligible only on the belief that the ass aids in giving, through the power of reversion, this character to its hybrid offspring.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 179   ~   ~   ~

The Equus indicus 36 is characterised by a spinal stripe, without shoulder or leg stripes; but traces of these latter stripes may occasionally be seen even in the adult 37 and Colonel S. Poole, who has had ample opportunities for observation, informs me that in the foal, when first born, the head and legs are often striped, but the shoulder-stripe is not so distinct as in the domestic ass; all these stripes, excepting that along the spine, soon disappear.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 180   ~   ~   ~

Now a hybrid, raised at Knowsley 38 from a female of this species by a male domestic ass, had all four legs transversely and conspicuously striped, had three short stripes on each shoulder and had even some zebra-like stripes on its face!

~   ~   ~   Sentence 205   ~   ~   ~

On the other hand, mules from the horse and ass are certainly not in the least wild, though notorious for obstinacy and vice.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 221   ~   ~   ~

-When purely-bred animals or plants reassume long-lost characters,-when the common ass, for instance, is born with striped legs, when a pure race of black or white pigeons throws a slaty-blue bird, or when a cultivated heartsease with large and rounded flowers produces a seedling with small and elongated flowers,-we are quite unable to assign any proximate cause.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 372   ~   ~   ~

Mr. Boner speaks ('Chamois-hunting,' 2nd edit., 1860, p. 92) of sheep often running wild in the Bavarian Alps; but, on making further inquiries at my request, he found that they are not able to establish themselves; they generally perish from the frozen snow clinging to their wool, and they have lost the skill necessary to pass over steep icy slopes.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 457   ~   ~   ~

Another species of wild ass, the true E. hemionus or Kiang, which ordinarily has no shoulder-stripes, is said occasionally to have them; and these, as with the horse and ass, are sometimes double: see Mr. Blyth in the paper just quoted and in 'Indian Sporting Review,' 1856, p. 320: and Col. Hamilton Smith in 'Nat.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 66   ~   ~   ~

I cannot doubt, from the observations of Colin and others, that the ass is prepotent over the horse; the prepotency in this instance running more strongly through the male than through the female ass; so that the mule resembles the ass more closely than does the hinny.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 314   ~   ~   ~

The tail of the hinny is much more like that of the horse than is the tail of the mule, and this is generally accounted for by the males of both species transmitting with greater power this part of their structure; but a compound hybrid which I saw in the Zoological Gardens, from a mare by a hybrid ass-zebra, closely resembled its mother in its tail.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 150   ~   ~   ~

The stripes are believed to occur most frequently and to be plainest on the legs of the domestic ass during early youth, 46 as likewise occurs with the horse.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 153   ~   ~   ~

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.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 165   ~   ~   ~

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 downwards,-are all cases of analogous variation in the horse and ass.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 112   ~   ~   ~

It was ordered, according to Moses, that "Thou shalt not let thy cattle gender with a diverse kind;" but mules were purchased 32 so that at this early period other nations must have crossed the horse and ass.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 167   ~   ~   ~

According to Varro, the wild ass was formerly caught and crossed with the tame animal to improve the breed, in the same manner as at the present day the natives of Java sometimes drive their cattle into the forests to cross with the wild Banteng ( Bos sondaicus ).

~   ~   ~   Sentence 148   ~   ~   ~

, they are carefully bred, as much as 200 l. having been paid for a stallion ass, and they have been immensely improved.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 45   ~   ~   ~

7 Now, in the wing of the pigeon or of any other bird, the first and fifth digits are aborted; the second is rudimentary and carries the so-called "bastard-wing;" whilst the third and fourth digits are completely united and enclosed by skin, together forming the extremity of the wing.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 128   ~   ~   ~

Now that we know that the wild parent of the ass commonly has striped legs, we may feel confident that the occasional appearance of stripes on the legs of the domestic ass is due to reversion; but this will not account for the lower end of the shoulder-stripe being sometimes angularly bent or slightly forked.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 19   ~   ~   ~

Thus with the common ass we see signs of its original desert life in its strong dislike to cross the smallest stream of water, and in its pleasure in rolling in the dust.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 63   ~   ~   ~

ANALOGOUS variation, 5 , 22 ; -in horses, 5 ; -in the horse and ass, 2 ; -in fowls, 7 .

~   ~   ~   Sentence 119   ~   ~   ~

Asinus tæniopus, the original of the domestic ass, 2 .

~   ~   ~   Sentence 121   ~   ~   ~

ASS, early domestication of the, 2 ; -breeds of, 2 ; -small size of, in India, 2 ; -stripes of, 2 (2); -dislike of, to cross water, 6 ; -reversion in, 13 (3); -hybrid of the, with mare and zebra, 13 ; -prepotency of the, over the horse, 14 ; -crossed with wild ass, 20 ; -variation and selection of the, 21 .

~   ~   ~   Sentence 183   ~   ~   ~

BECHSTEIN, on the burrowing of wolves, 1 ; -Spitz Dog, 1 ; -origin of the Newfoundland dog, 1 ; -crossing of domestic and wild swine, 3 ; -on the Jacobin pigeon, 5 , 6 ; -notice of swallow-pigeons, 5 ; -on a fork-tailed pigeon, 5 ; -variations in the colour of the croup in pigeons, 6 ; -on the German dovecot pigeon, 6 ; -fertility of mongrel-pigeons, 6 ; -on hybrid turtle-doves, 6 ; -on crossing the pigeon with Columba œnas, C. palumbus, Turtur risoria, and T. vulgaris, 6 ; -development of spurs in the silk hen, 7 ; -on Polish fowls, 7 (2); -on crested birds, 7 ; -on the canary-bird, 8 , 12 , 18 ; -German superstition about the turkey, 8 ; -occurrence of horns in hornless breeds of sheep, 13 ; -hybrids of the horse and ass, 14 ; -crosses of tailless fowls, 15 ; -difficulty of pairing dove-cot and fancy pigeons, 16 ; -fertility of tame ferrets and rabbits, 16 ; -fertility of wild sow, 16 ; -difficulty of breeding caged birds, 18 ; -comparative fertility of Psittacus erithacus in captivity, 18 ; -on changes of plumage in captivity, 18 ; -liability of light-coloured cattle to the attacks of flies, 21 ; -want of exercise a cause of variability, 22 ; -effect of privation of light upon the plumage of birds, 23 ; -on a sub-variety of the monk-pigeon, 26 .

~   ~   ~   Sentence 241   ~   ~   ~

BONER, Mr., semi-feral sheep, 13 .

~   ~   ~   Sentence 615   ~   ~   ~

CUVIER, on the gestation of the wolf, 1 ; -the odour of the jackal, an obstacle to domestication, 1 ; -differences of the skull in dogs, 1 ; -external characters of dogs, 1 ; -elongation of the intestines in domestic pigs, 3 , 24 ; -fertility of the hook-billed duck, 8 ; -hybrid of ass and zebra, 13 ; -breeding of animals in the Jardin des Plantes, 18 ; -sterility of predaceous birds in captivity, 18 ; -facility of hybridisation in confinement, 18 .

~   ~   ~   Sentence 871   ~   ~   ~

FLOURENS, crossing of wolf and dog, 1 ; -prepotency of the jackal over the dog, 14 ; -hybrids of the horse and ass, 14 ; -breeding of monkeys in Europe, 18 .

~   ~   ~   Sentence 1,058   ~   ~   ~

HARTMAN, on the wild ass, 2 .

~   ~   ~   Sentence 1,129   ~   ~   ~

HORSES, in Swiss lake-dwellings, 2 ; -different breeds of, in Malay Archipelago, 2 ; -anomalies in osteology and dentition of, 2 ; -mutual fertility of different breeds, 2 ; -feral, 2 ; -habit of scraping away snow, 2 ; -mode of production of breeds of, 2 ; -inheritance and diversity of colour in, 2 ; -dark stripes in, 2 ; -dun-coloured, origin of, 2 ; -colours of feral, 3 (2); -effect of fecundation by a quagga on the subsequent progeny of, 11 ; -inheritance of peculiarities in, 12 (2); -polydactylism in, 12 ; -inheritance of colour in, 12 ; -inheritance of exostoses in legs of, 12 ; -reversion in, 13 (2); -hybrids of, with ass and zebra, 13 ; -prepotency of transmission in the sexes of, 14 ; -segregation of, in Paraguay, 16 ; -wild species of, breeding in captivity, 18 ; -curly, in Paraguay, 20 , 25 ; -selection of, for trifling characters, 20 ; -unconscious selection of, 20 (2); -natural selection in Circassia, 21 ; -alteration of coat of, in coal-mines, 23 ; -degeneration of, in the Falkland Islands, 23 ; -diseases of, caused by shoeing, 24 ; -feeding on meat, 24 ; -white and white-spotted, poisoned by mildewed vetches, 25 ; -analogous variations in the colour of, 26 ; -teeth developed on palate of, 27 ; -of Bronze period in Denmark, 28 .

~   ~   ~   Sentence 1,149   ~   ~   ~

HYBRIDS, of hare and rabbit, 6 ; -of various species of Gallus, 7 ; -of almond, peach, and nectarine, 10 ; -naturally produced, of species of Cytisus, 11 ; -from twin-seed of Fuchsia coccinea and fulgens, 11 ; -reversion of, 11 (2), 13 (2); -from mare, ass, and zebra, 13 ; -of tame animals, wildness of, 13 (2); -female instincts of sterile male, 13 ; -transmission and blending of characters in, 15 ; -breed better with parent species than with each other, 17 ; -self-impotence in, 17 ; -readily produced in captivity, 18 .

~   ~   ~   Sentence 2,316   ~   ~   ~

VARIATION, laws of, 24 ; -continuity of, 21 ; -possible limitation of, 21 , 28 (2); -in domestic cats, 1 ; -origin of breeds of cattle by, 3 ; -in osteological characters of rabbits, 4 ; -of important organs, 10 ; -analogous or parallel, 9 ; -in horses, 2 ; -in the horse and ass, 2 ; -in fowls, 7 ; -in geese, 8 ; -exemplified in the production of fleshy stems in cabbages, etc., 9 ; -in the peach, nectarine, and apricot, 10 (2); -individual, in wheat, 9 .

~   ~   ~   Sentence 2,319   ~   ~   ~

VARRO, on domestic ducks, 8 ; -on feral fowls, 13 ; -crossing of the wild and domestic ass, 20 .

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