Vulgar words in The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) (Page 1)
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With the common ass, as we now know that the legs of the wild progenitor are striped, we may feel assured that the occasional appearance of such stripes in the domestic animal is a case of simple reversion.
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But now let us turn to the result of crossing the horse and ass.
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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.
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As the zebra has such conspicuously striped 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, [98] 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.
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The Asinus Indicus [100] is characterised by a spinal stripe, without shoulder {43} or leg stripes; but traces of these latter stripes may occasionally be seen even in the adult; [101] 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.
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Now a hybrid, raised at Knowsley [102] 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!
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On the other hand, mules from the horse and ass are certainly not in the least wild, yet they are notorious for obstinacy and vice.
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-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.
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If every horse or ass had striped legs whilst young, the stripes which occasionally appear on these animals when adult would have to be considered as due to the anomalous retention of an early character, and not as due to reversion.
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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.
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It was ordered, according to Moses, that "Thou shalt not let thy cattle gender with a diverse kind;" but mules were purchased, [473] so that at this early period other nations must have crossed the horse and ass.
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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 ).
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Near Cordova, as I am informed (Feb. 1860) by Mr. W. E. Webb, C.E., they are carefully bred, as much as 200 l. having been paid for a stallion ass, {237} and they have been immensely improved.
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Now, in the wing of the pigeon or any other bird, the first and fifth digits are wholly 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.
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Now that we know that the wild parent of the ass has striped legs, we may feel confident that the occasional appearance of stripes on the legs of the domestic ass is due to direct reversion; but this will not account for the lower end of the shoulder-stripe being sometimes angularly bent or slightly forked.
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Still less {406} could man have foreseen whether his animals and plants would vary in succeeding generations and thus give birth to new races; and the small capacity of variability in the goose and ass has not prevented their domestication from the remotest epoch.
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55; in the horse and ass, i.
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41 ; the original of the domestic ass, i.
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Ass , early domestication of the, i.
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67 - 68 ; crossed with wild ass, ii.
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30 ; hybrids of the horse and ass, ii.
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13 ; hybrid of ass and zebra, ii.
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67 ; hybrids of the horse and ass, ii.
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33 , 41 ; hybrids of, with ass and zebra, ii.
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36 , 48 - 50 ; from mare, ass, and zebra, ii.
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55; in the horse and ass, i.
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33 ; crossing of the wild and domestic ass, ii.
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[101] Another species of wild ass, the true A. 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.
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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.