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SECTION XXII.

NATURAL HISTORY.

THE HORSE-[Concluded.]

"In Germany we meet with very handsome Horses; but they are generally heavy and short breathed. The Hussars and Hungarians split their nostrils, with a view, they say, of giving them more breath, and also to hinder their neighing in battle. The Flemish Horses are greatly inferior to those of Holland: they have almost all large heads, flat feet, and are subject to humours in the eyes; and these two last are essential defects in coach Horses.

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'According to Marmol, the Arabian Horses are descended from the wild Horses in the deserts of Arabia, of which, in ancient times, large studs were formed, which have multiplied so much, that all Asia and Africa are full of them: they are so swift, that some will outstrip the very ostriches in their course. The Arabians of the desert, and the people of Libya, breed a great number of these Horses for hunting, but neither use them in travelling nor in their wars; they send them to pasture whilst there is grass for them, and when that fails they feed them only with dates and camel's milk, which makes them nervous, nimble, and lean. They lay snares for the wild Horses, and eat the flesh of the young ones, which they affirm is very delicate food. These wild Horses are smaller than the tame ones, and are commonly ash-coloured, though there are also some white ones, and the mane and the hair of the tail is short and frizzled.

"Let an Arabian be ever so poor, he has Horses. They usually mount the Mares, experience having taught them that they bear fatigue, hunger, and thirst, better than Horses; they are also less vicious. They use them so much to be together, that they will remain so in great numbers for days together, left to themselves, without doing the least harm to each other. The Turks, on the contrary, do not approve of Mares; and the Arabians sell them the Horses which they do not keep for stallions. They have long preserved, with great care, the breed of their Horses; they know their generations, alliances, and all their genealogy, and distinguish the breeds by different names. The lowest price for a Mare of the first class, is from one hundred, to two or three hundred pounds sterling. As the Arabians have only a tent for their house, this tent serves them also for a stable. The Mare, Colt, husband, wife and children, lie promiscuously together; and the little children will lie on the body and neck of the Mare and Colt, without these animals incommoding or doing them the least injury. These Mares are so accustomed to live in this familiarity, that they will suffer any kind of play. The Arabians treat them kindly, talk and reason with them and take great care of them, always let them walk, and never use the spur without necessity: whence, as soon as they feel their flank tickled with the stirrup iron, they set out immediately with incredible swiftness, and leap hedges and ditches, with as much agility as so many does; and if their rider happens to fall, they are so well broken, that they will stop short, even in the most rapid gallop. All Arabian Horses are of a middling size, very easy in their manner, and rather thin than fat; they are dressed morning and evening regularly, with so much care, that not the smallest spot is left in their skins; VOL. II.

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their legs are also washed, and their mane and tail are permitted to grow long, and seldom combed, to avoid breaking the hairs. They have nothing given them to eat all day, and seldom are allowed to drink above two or three times; at sunset, a bag is fastened round their heads, in which is about half a bushel of very clean barley. These Horses, therefore, eat only during the night; and the bag is not taken from them till the next morning, when all is eaten up; and in the month of March, when the grass is tolerably high, they are turned out to pasture. As soon as the spring is past, they are taken again from pasture, and have neither grass nor oats all the rest of the year, and straw but seldom, barley being their only food. The mane of the Colts is cut as soon as they are a year or eighteen months old, in order to make it grow thick and long. They mount them at two years old, or two years and a half at farthest: till this age they put neither saddle nor bridle on them; and every day from morning till night, all the Arabian Horses stand saddled at the door of the tent.

"An affecting instance is on Record of the attachment which the Arabians feel for their horses. A poor Arabian of the desert was possessed only of a Mare, which the French consul at Said was desirous to purchase, that he might send her as a present to Louis XIV. The Arab hesitated long, but want drove him to consent, on condition of receiving a large sum, which he himself named. The Arab, clothed in his rags, brought his courser to the consul, dismounted, looked first at the tempting gold, and then steadfastly at his mare. But here his heart failed. He heaved a deep sigh, and fondly exclaimed, "To whom am I going to give thee up? to Europeans! who will tie thee close, who will beat thee, who will render thee miserable! Return with ine, my beauty! my jewel! and rejoice the hearts of my children." Then springing on the back of the an imal, he was out of sight in a moment.

“The breed of these Horses is dispersed in Barbary, among the Moors, and even among the Negroes of the river Gambia and Senegal; the lords of the country have some which are of uncommon beauty. Instead of barley or oats, they give them maize reduced to flour, which they mix with milk, when they are inclined to fatten them; and in this hot climate they seldom let them drink.

"The Tartars live with their horses nearly in the same manner as the Arabians do. When they are about seven or eight months old the young children mount them, and make them walk and gallop a little way by turns; they thus break them by degrees, and oblige them to undergo long fastings; but they never mount them for racing or hunting till they are six or seven years old, and then make them support incredible fatigue, such as travelling two or three days together without stopping, passing four or five days without any other food than a handful of grass every eight hours, and also inure them to go twenty-four hours without drinking. These Horses, which appear, and which are in reality, so robust in their own country, become enfeebled, and are soon good for nothing, when transported to China or the Indies; but they succeed better in Persia and Turkey. In Lesser Tartary they have also a breed of small Horses, which are in such estimation that they are not allowed to sell them to foreigners. These Horses have

all the good and bad qualities of those of Great Tartary, which shows how much the same manners, and the same education, give the same disposition to these animals. There are also in Circassia, and in Mingrelia, many Horses which are even handsomer than those of Tartary; there are also found some handsome Horses in the Ukraine, Wallachia, Poland and Sweden; but we have no particular account of their qualities and defects.

"When the Horse is impassioned with love, desire, or appetite, he shows his teeth, and seems to laugh; he shows them also when angry, and would bite; he sometimes puts out his tongue to lick, but less frequently than the ox, who licks much more than the Horse, and who, notwithstanding, is less sensible to caresses.

"The Horse also remembers ill treatment much longer, and is sooner rebuffed than the ox; his natural spirit and courage are such, that when he finds more is expected from him than he is able to perform, he grows angry, and will not endeavour; instead of which, the ox, who is slow and idle, exerts himself and is more easily tired. That they are capable of feeling resentment is proved by a curious circumstance. A baronet, who was in possession of a hunter which seemed to be untirable, resolved to try if he could not completely fatigue him. After a long chase, he dined, mounted him again, and rode him furiously among the hills, till the animal was so exhausted that he reached the stable with infinite difficulty. More humane than his worthless master, the groom shed tears to see the state of the animal. Shortly afterward, on the baronet entering the stable, the Horse furiously sprung at him, and he would have perished had he not been rescued by the groom.

"The Horse sleeps much less than man; for when he is in health, he does not rest more than two or three hours together; he then gets up to eat; and when he has been too much fatigued, he lies down a second time, after having eaten; but, on the whole, he does not sleep more than three or four hours in the twenty-four. There are even some Horses who never lie down, but sleep standing. It has been also remarked, that Geldings sleep oftener and longer than Horses.

"The swiftness and strength of the Horse are wonderful. Childers, the race Horse, has been known to pass over eighty-two feet and a half in a second. Others have trotted more than twenty-one miles in an hour. There have been mill horses, which, at one load, have carried thirteen measures, or nine hundred pounds weight of corn.

"Quadrupeds do not all drink in the same manner, though they are all equally obliged to seek with the head for the liquor, which they cannot get in any other way, excepting the monkey, and some others that have hands, and consequently drink like men, when a vase or glass is given them which they can hold; for they carry it to their mouths, inclining the head, throwing down the liquor, and swallowing it by the simple motion of deglutition. Man usually drinks in the same manner, because it is the most convenient. Most quadrupeds also choose that mode which is most agreeable to them, and constantly follow it. The dog, whose mouth is very large, and the tongue long and thin, drinks lapping; that is, by licking the liquor, and forming with the tongue a kind ot cup or scoop, which fills each time with a tolerable quantity of liquor; and this mode he prefers to that of wetting the nose. The Horse, on the contrary, whose mouth is small, and whose tongue is too short and thick to scoop it up, and who always drinks with more avidity than he eats, dips the mouth and nose quickly and deeply into the water, which he swallows largely by the simple motion of deglutition; but this forces him to drink without fetching his breath; whilst the dog breathes at his ease while he is drinking, Horses therefore should be suffered to take several draughts, especially after running, when respiration is short and quick. They should not be suffered to drink the water too cold, because that, independently of the

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colic, which cold water frequently occasions, it sometimes happens also, from the necessity they are in of dipping the nose into the water, that they catch cold, which often lays the foundation of a disorder called the glanders, the most formidable of all to that species of animal; for it is known, that the seat of the glanders is in the pituitary membrane, and that it is consequently a real cold, which causes an inflammation in this membrane; and travellers who give us detail of the maladies of Horses in warm climates, as in Arabia, Persia, and Barbary, do not say that the glanders are so frequent there as in cold climates. It is from this that the conjecture arises, that this malady is occasioned by the coldness of the water, because these animals are obliged to dip and keep the nose and nostrils a considerable time under water, which would be prevented by never giving it to them cold, and by always wiping the nostrils after they have drank. Asses, who fear the Cold more than Horses, and who resemble them more strongly in the interior structure, are, notwithstanding, not so subject to the glanders; which may possibly happen from their drinking in a different manner from Horses; for, instead of dipping the mouth and nose deeply into the water, they scarcely touch it with their lips.

"I shall not speak of the other diseases of Horses; it would extend this Natural History too much to join to the history of an animal that of its disorders; nevertheless, I cannot leave the history of the Horse, without regretting that the health of this useful animal should have been hitherto abandoned to the care, and too frequently absurd practice of ignorant people. The branch of physic which the ancients called Veterinarian, is at present scarcely known but by name. Were some physician to direct his views this way, and make this study his principal object, he would soon find it answer his purpose, both with respect to reputation and profit. Instead of degrading himself, he would render his name illustrious; and this branch of physic would not be so conjectural and difficult as the other. All causes being more simple in animals than in man, the diseases ought also to be less complicated, and consequently more easily to be guessed at, and treated with more success, without mentioning the entire liberty he would have of making experiments and finding out new remedies, and the ability of arriving without fear or reproach at a great extent of knowledge of this kind, from which, by analogy, might also be drawn inferences useful to the art of curing mankind. Among the brutal acts which are committed upon Horses, may be reckoned the absurd and inhuman practices of docking and nicking their tails, and applying the shoe red-hot to the sole of the foot."

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towards the throttle, shoulders low and thick, (in so little a creature far from being a blemish.) back short, quarters expanded and powerful, legs flat and fine, and pretty round feet. They possess immense strength for their size, will fatten on any thing, and are perfectly docile. One of them, nine hands or three feet in height, carried a man of twelve stone, forty miles in one day."

THE ASS.

"If we consider this animal with some degree of attention, he appears only to be a horse degenerated. The perfect similitude in the conformation of the internal parts, and the great resemblance of the body, legs, feet, and the entire skeleton, is a sufficient foundation for this opinion; we may also attribute the slight differences which are found between these two animals, to the influence of the climate, food, and the fortuitous succession of many generations of small wild horses, half degenerated, which, by little and little, have still continued degenerating, and have at last produced a new and fixed species; or rather a succession of individuals alike, all vitiated in the same manner, sufficiently differing from a horse, to be looked upon as another species. What appears to favour this notion is, that as horses vary much more than Asses in the colour of their skin, they are consequently more anciently domestic, since all domestic animals vary much more in their colour than wild ones of the same species; that the greater number of wild horses, of which travellers speak, are small in their size, and have, like Asses, the coat gray, and the tail naked and frizzled at the end; and, that there are wild horses, and even domestic ones, which have a black stripe on the back, and other marks, which nearly resemble both wild and domestic Asses.

"But if we consider the difference of the temperament, disposition, and manners; in a word, the organism of these two animals, and above all, the impossibility of mixing the breed to make one common species, or even an intermediate species which may be renewed; it appears a better founded opinion, that these animals are of a species equally ancient, and originally as essentially different as they are at present; as the Ass differs materially from the horse, in the smallness of the size, the largeness of the head, the length of the ears, the hardness of the skin, the nakedness of the tail, the form of the rump, and also in the voice, the appetite, the manner of drinking, &c. Do the horse and the Ass, then, come originally from the same stock? are they of the same family, or not? and have they not always been different animals?

"Although we cannot demonstrate that the production of a species by degeneration is a thing impossible in nature, yet the number of probabilities to the contrary is so great, that even philosophically, we can no longer doubt it; for if some species have been produced by the degeneration of others, if the species of the Ass comes from the species of the horse, this can only have happened successively; and by degrees there would have been, between the horse and the Ass, a great number of intermediate animals, the first of which would have differed but slightly in its nature from the horse, and the latter would have approached by degrees to that of the Ass; and why do we not see the representatives, the descendants of these intermediate species ? why do only the two extremes remain ?

"The Ass is then an Ass, and not a horse degenerated; the Ass has a naked tail; he is neither a stranger, an intruder, nor a bastard; he has, like all other animals, his family, his species, and his rank; his blood is pure; and although his nobility is less illustrious, yet it is equally good, equally ancient with that of the horse. Why then have we so much contempt for this animal: so good, so patient, so steady, so useful? Why do men carry their contempt even to animals, those which serve them so well; and at so small an expense? We bestow education on the Horse, take care of him, instruct him, and exercise him, whilst the Ass is abandoned to the care of

the lowest servant, or to the tricks of children; so that, instead of improving, he must lose by his education and if there were not a fund of good qualities, he would certainly lose them by the manner in which he is treated. He is the may-game of the rustics, who beat him with staffs, overload him, and make him work beyond his strength. We do not consider, that the Ass would be in himself, and with respect to us, the most beautiful, the best formed, and the most distinguished of animals, if there were no horse in the world; he is the second, instead of being the first; and it is from that only, that he appears to be of no value: the comparison degrades him; we look at him, and give our opinions not from himself, but comparatively with the horse: we forget that he is an Ass, that he has all the good qualities of his nature, all the gifts attached to his species; and at the same time, we only think of the figure and qualities of the Horse, which are wanting in him, and which he ought not to have.

"He is naturally as humble, patient, and quiet, as the horse is proud, ardent, and impetuous; he suffers with constancy, and perhaps with fortitude, chastisement and blows; he is moderate both as to the quantity and quality of his food; he is contented with the hardest and most disagreeable herbs, which the horse and other animals will leave with disdain; he is very delicate with respect to his water, for he will drink none but the clearest, and from rivulets with which he is acquainted; he drinks as moderately as he eats, and does not put his nose in the water (through fear as some say, of the shadow of his ears :) as care is not taken to currycomb him, be frequently rolls himself on the grass and thistles, and in the dust; and, without regarding his load, he lays himself down to roll about as often as he can, and by this seems to reproach his master for the little care he takes of him; for he does not paddle about in the mud and in the water; he even fears to wet his feet, and will turn out of his road to avoid the mud; his legs are also drier and cleaner than the horse; he is susceptible of education, and some have been seen sufficiently disciplined to be made a show of.

"In their earliest youth they are sprightly and even handsome; they are light and genteel; but, either from age or bad treatment, they soon become slow, indocile, and headstrong. Pliny assures us, that when they separate the mother from the young one, she will go through fire to recover it. The Ass is also strongly attached to his master, notwithstanding he is usually ill treated; he will smell him afar off, and can distinguish him from all other men ; he also knows the places where he has lived, and the ways which he has frequented: his eyes are good, and his smell acute; his ears are excellent, which has also contributed to his being numbered among timid animals, which it is pretended have all the hearing extremely delicate, and the ears long; when he is overloaded, he shows it by lowering his head and bending down his ears; when he is greatly abused, he opens his mouth, and draws back his lips in a most disagreeable manner, which gives him an air of derision and scorn; if his eyes are covered over, he remains motionless; and when he is laid down on his side and his head is fixed in such a manner that one eye rests on the ground, and the other is covered with a chip of wood, he will remain in this situation without any motion or endeavour to get up: he walks, trots, and gallops like the horse; but all his motions are smaller, and much slower; notwithstanding he can run with tolerable swiftness, he can gallop but a little way, and only for a small space of time; and whatever pace he uses, if he is hard pressed, he is soon fatigued.

"The horse neighs, and the Ass brays, which he does by a long, disagreeable, and discordant cry. The she Ass has the voice clearer and shriller; those that are gelded bray very low; and though they seem to make the same efforts, and the same motions of the throat, yet their cry cannot be heard far off.

"Of all the animals covered with hair, the Ass is least

subject to vermin; he has never any lice, which apparently proceeds from the hardness and dryness of the skin, which is certainly harder than in the greatest part of other quadrupeds; and it is for the same reason that he is much less sensible than the horse to the whip, and the sting of the flies.

"At two years and a half old, the first middle incisive teeth fall out, and afterward the other incisive at the side of the first fall also, and are renewed at the same time and in the same order as those of the horse; the age of the Ass is also known by his teeth; the third incisive on each side ascertains it, as in the horse.

"The Ass is three or four years in growing, and lives twenty-five or thirty years. He sleeps less than the horse, and does not lie down to sleep unless when quite tired.

There are among Asses different races, as among horses; but they are much less known, because they have not been taken the same care of, or followed with the same attention; but we cannot doubt that they came all originally from warm climates. Aristotle assures us, that there were none in his time in Scythia, nor in the other neighbouring countries of Scythia, nor even in Gaul, which he says, is a cold climate; and he adds, That a cold climate either prevents them from procrea

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ting their species, or causes them to degenerate; and that this last circumstance is the reason that they are small and weak in Illyria, Thrace, and Epirus. They appear to have come originally from Arabia, and to have passed from Arabia into Egypt, from Egypt into Greece, from Greece into Italy, from Italy into France, and af terward into Germany and England, and lastly into Sweden, &c. ; for they are, in fact, weak and small in proportion to the coldness of the climate. They are said to have been introduced into England subsequently to the reign of Elizabeth. Of all the various breeds of Asses, the Spanish breed is by far the finest. They are often found of the height of fifteen hands, and the value of a hundred guineas.

"The Latins, after the Greeks, have called the Wild Ass Angra; which animal must not be confounded, as some naturalists and many travellers have done, with the zebra.

"The Angra or Wild Ass is not striped like the zebra, and is not near so elegant in figure. Wild Asses are found in some of the islands of the Archipelago, and particularly in that of Cerigo; there are also many in the deserts of Libya and Numidia; they are gray, and run so fast that the horses of Barbary only can beat | them in hunting. When they see a man, they give a

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loud cry, turn themselves about and stop, and do not attempt to fly till they find he comes near them; they are taken in snares made with ropes, and go in troops both to pasturage and to drink; their flesh is also eaten. There were also in the time of Marmol, Wild Asses in the island of Sardinia, but less than those of Africa; and Pietro della Valle says, he has seen a Wild Ass at Bassora, whose figure differed in no respect from a domestic one; he was only of a lighter colour, and had, from the head to the tail, a stripe of white; he was also much livelier, and lighter in hunting than Asses usually are.

"Neither Asses nor horses were originally found in America, though the climate, especially of North America, is as good for them as any other: those which the Spaniards have transported from Europe, and which they have left in the West Indies and on the Continent, have greatly multiplied; and in some parts Wild

Asses are found in troops, and are taken in snares like wild horses. The Wild Asses of America will not suffer a horse to live among them. Wo to the horse that chances to stray into the pasture where they are feeding in bands. They fall upon him, and bite and kick him, till he ceases to exist.

"The Ass with the mare produces large mules, and the horse with the she Ass produces small mules, differing from the first in many respects.

"As Wild Asses are unknown in these climates, we cannot in reality say whether the flesh is good to eat; but it is certain that the flesh of the domestic Ass is extremely bad, and harder than that of the horse. The milk of the Ass, on the contrary, is an approved and specific remedy for certain complaints, and its use was known from the Greeks to us: that it may be good in its kind, we should choose a young healthy she Ass, full of flesh, which has lately foaled, and which has not

since been with the male: care must be taken to feed | Forrest, bound from Gibraltar to that island.
her well with hay, wheat, and grass, with particular
care not to let the milk cool, and not even to expose it |
to the air, which will spoil it in a little time.

"The skin of the Ass is used for different purposes, such as to make drums, shoes, &c. and thick parchment for pocket books, which is slightly varnished over: it is also of Asses' skin that the orientals make the sagri, which we call shagreen. The roughness of the latter, however, is produced by art.

"The Ass is perhaps with respect to himself, the animal which can carry the greatest weight; and as it costs but little to feed him, and he scarcely requires any care, he is of great use in the country, at the mill, &c.; he also serves to ride on, as all his paces are gentle, and he stumbles less than the horse: he is frequently put to the plough in countries where the earth is light, and his dung is an excellent manure to enrich hard moist lands. In many parts of South America he is valued higher than the horse.

"The Ass, like some other animals, and some birds, possesses in great perfection the power of finding his way home, when lost at a great distance. An instance of this is recorded by Kirby and Spence, in their excellent Introduction to Entomology. In March, 1816, an Ass, the property of Captain Dundas, R. N. then at Malta, was shipped on board the Ister frigate, Captain

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vessel having struck on some sands off the Point de Gat, at some distance from the shore, the Ass was thrown overboard, to give it a chance of swimming to land; a poor one, for the sea was running so high, that a boat which left the ship was lost. A few days afterward, however, when the gates of Gibraltar were opened in the morning, the Ass presented himself for admittance, and proceeded to the stable of Mr. Weeks, a merchant, which he had formerly occupied, to the no small surprise of this gentleman, who imagined that, from some accident the animal had never been shipped on board the Ister. On the return of this vessel to repair, the mystery was explained; and it turned out that Valiante (as the Ass was called,) had not only swam safely to shore, but, without guide, compass, or travelling map, had found his way from Point de Gat to Gibraltar, a distance of more than two hundred miles, through a mountainous and intricate country, intersected by streams, which he had never traversed before, and in so short a period, that he could not have made one false turn. His not having been stopped on the road was attributed to the circumstance of his having formerly been used to whip criminals upon, which was indicated to the peasants, who have a superstitious horror of such Asses, by the holes in his ears, to which the persons flogged were tied."

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