case they both unavoidably perish. But their address in this rapid descent is truly wonderful; for in their swiftest motion, when they seem to have lost all government of themselves, they follow exactly all the different windings of the road, as if they had previously settled in their minds the route they were to follow, and taken every precaution for their safety. In this journey, the natives, who are placed along the sides of the mountains, and hold by the roots of the trees, down for that purpose, unless very much tired. | ing themselves for the encounter. They not only The she-ass goes above eleven months with young, attentively view the road, but tremble and snort and never brings forth more than one at a time. at the danger. Having prepared for the descent, The mule may be engendered either between a they place their fore-feet in a posture as if they horse and a she-ass, or between a jack-ass and a were stopping themselves; they then also put mare. The latter breed is every way preferable, their hinder-feet together, but a little forward, as being larger, stronger, and better shaped. It is if they were going to lie down. In this attitude, not yet well known whether the animal called having taken, as it were, a survey of the road, the Gimerro be one of these kinds; or, as is as- they slide down with the swiftness of a meteor. serted, bred between the ass and the bull. While In the meantime, all the rider has to do is to naturalists affirm the impossibility of this mix- keep himself fast on the saddle, without checking ture, the natives of the alpine countries, where the rein, for the least motion is sufficient to disthis animal is bred, as strongly insist upon its re-order the equilibrium of the mule; in which ality. The common mule is very healthy, and will live above thirty years, being found very serviceable in carrying burdens, particularly in mountainous and stony places, where horses are not so sure-footed. The size and strength of our asses is at present greatly improved by the importation of Spanish jack-asses; and it is probable we may come in time to equal the Spaniards in breeding them, where it is not uncommon to give fifty or sixty guineas for a mule; and, indeed, in some mountainous countries, the inhab-animate the beast with shouts, and encourage itants cannot do well without them. Their manner of going down the precipices of the Alps or the Andes is very extraordinary; and with it we will conclude their history. In these passages, on one side, are steep eminences, and, on the other, frightful abysses; and, as they generally follow the direction of the mountain, the road, instead of lying in a level, forms at every little distance steep declivities, of several hundred yards downward. These can only be descended by mules; and the animal itself seems sensible of the danger, and the caution that is to be used in such descents. When they come to the edge of one of these descents, they stop, without being checked by the rider; and, if he inadvertently attempts to spur them on, they continue immoveable. They seem all this time ruminating on the danger that lies before them, and prepar. 7 Mules have not unfrequently been known to bring forth young, especially in hot countries; and instances have not been wanting, though they are rare, both in England and Scotland. But it would require a succession of experiments to prove that mules will breed with each other, and produce an offspring equally capable of continuing the race. The common mule is very healthy and will live above thirty years. It is found very serviceable in carrying burdens, particularly in mountainous and stony places, where horses are not so sure-footed. The size and strength of our breed have lately been much improved by the exportation of Spanish male asses; and it were much to be wished that the useful qualities of this animal were more attended to; for, by proper care in its breaking, its natural obstinacy would, in a great measure, be corrected; and it might be formed with success for the saddle, the draught, or the burden. People of the first quality in Spain are drawn by mules, where fifty or sixty guineas is no uncommon price for one of them; nor is it surprising, when we consider how far they excel the horse in travelling in a mountainous country, the mule being able to tread securely where the former can hardly stand.-ED. him to perseverance. Some mules, after being long used to these journeys, acquire a kind of reputation for their safety and skill; and their value rises in proportion to their fame.8 CHAP. III. OF THE ZEBRA. THERE are but three animals of the horse kind.1 The horse, which is the most stately and courageous; the ass, which is the most patient and humble; and the zebra, which is the most beautiful, but at the same time the wildest animal in nature. Nothing can exceed the delicate regularity of this creature's colour, or the lustrous smoothness of its skin; but on the other hand, nothing can be more timid or more untameable. It is chiefly a native of the southern parts of Africa; and there are whole herds of them often seen feeding in those extensive plains that lie towards the Cape of Good Hope. However, their watchfulness is such, that they will suffer nothing to come near them, and their swiftness so great, that they readily leave every pursuer far behind. The zebra in shape rather resembles the mule, than the horse or the ass. It is rather less than the former, and yet larger than the latter. Its ears are not so long as those of the ass, and yet not so small as in the horse kind. the ass, its head is large, its back straight, its 8 Ulloa, vol. i. Like 1 There are other two species of the horse genus, namely, the dziggtai and the quagga. The moun tain-zebra, and the zebra of the plains, are also different species. See Supplementary Note to this chapter.-ED. legs finely placed, and its tail tufted at the end; | to hold the reins, while the third ventured upon like the horse its skin is smooth and close, and its back; and even then it attempted to kick, its hind quarters round and fleshy. But its whenever it perceived any person approaching. greatest beauty lies in the amazing regularity | That which is now in the Queen's menagerie at and elegance of its colours. In the male, they Buckingham-Gate, is even more vicious than the are white and brown; in the female, white and former; and the keeper who shows it takes care black. These colours are disposed in alternate to inform the spectators of its ungovernable nastripes over the whole body, and with such exact- ture. Upon my attempting to approach it, it ness and symmetry, that one would think Nature seemed quite terrified, and was preparing to kick, had employed the rule and compass to paint them. appearing as wild as if just caught, although These stripes, which, like so many ribands, are laid taken extremely young, and used with the utall over its body, are narrow, parallel, and exact- most indulgence. Yet still it is most probable ly separated from each other. It is not here as that this animal. by time and assiduity, could be in other party-coloured animals, where the tints brought under subjection. As it resembles the are blended into each other; every stripe here horse in form, without all doubt it has a similiis perfectly distinct, and preserves its colour tude of nature, and only requires the efforts of round the body or the limb, without any diminu- an industrious and skilful nation, to be added to tion. In this manner are the head, the body, the the number of our domestics. It is not now thighs, the legs, and even the tail and the ears, known what were the pains and dangers which beautifully streaked, so that at a little distance were first undergone to reclaim the breed of one would be apt to suppose that the animal was horses from savage ferocity; these, no doubt, dressed out by art, and not thus admirably made an equal opposition; but by being opposed adorned by nature. by an industrious and enterprising race of mankind, their spirit was at last subdued, and their freedom restrained. It is otherwise with regard to the zebra; it is the native of countries where the human inhabitants are but little raised above the quadruped. The natives of Angola, or Caffra ria, have no other idea of advantage from horses but as they are good for food; neither the fine stature of the Arabian courser nor the delicate colourings of the zebra, have any allurements to a race of people, who only consider the quantity of flesh, and not its conformation. The delicacy of the zebra's shape, or the painted elegance of its form, are no more regarded by such, than by the lion that makes it his prey. For this reason, therefore, the zebra may hitherto have continued wild, because it is the native of a country where there have been no successive efforts made to reclaim it. All pursuits that have been hitherto instituted against it, were rather against its life than its liberty: the animal has thus been long taught to consider man as its most mortal enemy; and it is not to be wondered that it refuses to yield obedience where it has so seldom experienced mercy. There is a kind of knowledge in all animals, that I have often considered with amazement; which is, that they seem perfectly to know their enemies, and to avoid them. Instinct, indeed, may teach the deer to fly from the lion; or the mouse to avoid the cat; but what is the principle that teaches the dog to attack the dog-butcher wherever he sees him? In China, where the killing and dressing of dogs is a trade, whenever one of those people moves out, all the dogs of the village or the street are sure to be after him. This I should hardly have be In the male zebra, the head is striped with fine bands of black and white, which in a manner centre in the forehead. The ears are variegated with a white and dusky brown. The neck has broad stripes of the same dark brown running round it, leaving narrow white stripes between. The body is striped also across the back with broad bands, leaving narrower spaces of white between them, and ending in points at the sides of the belly, which is white, except a black line pectinated on each side, reaching from between the fore-legs, along the middle of the belly, twothirds of its length. There is a line of separation between the trunk of the body and the hinder quarters, on each side; behind which, on the rump, is a plat of narrow stripes, joined together by a stripe down the middle, to the end of the tail. The colours are different in the female; and in none the stripes seem entirely to agree in form, but in all they are equally distinct; the hair equally smooth and fine, the white shining and unmixed; and the black, or brown, thick and lustrous. Such is the beauty of this creature, that it seems by nature fitted to satisfy the pride and the pleasure of man; and formed to be taken into his service. Hitherto, however, it appears to have disdained servitude; and neither force nor kindness have been able to wean it from its native independence and ferocity. But this wildness might, perhaps, in time be surmounted: and it is probable the horse and the ass, when first taken from the forest, were equally obstinate, fierce, and unmanageable. Mr. Buffon informs us, that the zebra, from which he took his description, could never be entirely mastered, not-lieved, but that I have seen more than one inwithstanding all the efforts which were tried to tame it. They continued, indeed, to mount it, but then with such precautions as evidently showed its fierceness, for two men were obliged stance of it among ourselves. I have seen a poor fellow who made a practice of stealing and killing dogs for their skins, pursued in full cry for three or four streets together, by all the bolder breed of dogs, while the weaker flew from his presence with affright. How these animals could thus find out their enemy, and pursue him, appears, I own, unaccountable, but such is the fact; and it not only obtains in dogs, but in several other animals, though perhaps to a less degree. This very probably may have been in some measure a cause that has hitherto kept the zebra in its state of natural wildness; and in which it may continue, till kinder treatment shall have reconciled it to its pursuers. It is very likely, therefore, as a more civilized people are now placed at the Cape of Good Hope, which is the chief place where this animal is found, that we may have them tamed and rendered serviceable. Nor is its extraordinary beauty the only motive we have for wishing this animal among the number of our dependents: its swiftness is said to surpass that of all others; so that the speed of a zebra is become a proverb among the Spaniards and Portuguese. It stands better upon its legs also than a horse; and is consequently stronger in proportion. Thus, if by proper care we improve the breed, as we have in other instances, we should probably in time to come have a race as large as the horse, as fleet, as strong, and much more beautiful. The zebra, as was said, is chiefly a native of the Cape of Good Hope. It is also found in the kingdom of Angola; and, as we are assured by Lopez, in several provinces also of Barbary. In those boundless forests it has nothing to restrain its liberty; it is too shy to be caught in traps, and therefore seldom taken alive. It would seem, therefore, that none of them have ever been brought into Europe, that were caught sufficiently young, so as to be untinctured by their original state of wildness. The Portuguese, indeed, pretend that they have been able to tame them, and that they have sent four from Africa to Lisbon, which were so far brought under, as to draw the king's coach :2 they add, that the person who sent them over, had the office of notary conferred upon him for his reward, which was to remain to him and his posterity for ever: but I do not find this confirmed by any person who says he saw them. Of those which were sent to Brazil, not one could be tamed; they would permit one man only to approach them; they were tied up very short; and one of them, which had by some means got loose, actually killed his groom, having bitten him to death. Notwithstanding this, I believe, were the zebra taken up very young, and properly treated, it might be rendered as tame as another animal; and Merolla, who saw many of them, asserts, that when tamed, which he speaks of as being common enough, they are not less estimable for their swiftness than their beauty. This animal, which is neither to be found in Europe, Asia, nor America, is nevertheless very easily fed. That which came over into England some years ago, would eat almost any thing. such as bread, meat, and tobacco; that which is now among us, subsists entirely upon hay. As it so nearly resembles the horse and the ass in structure, so it probably brings forth annually as they do. The noise they make is neither like that of a horse nor an ass, but more resembling the confused barking of a mastiff dog. In the two which I saw, there was a circumstance that seems to have escaped naturalists; which is, that the skin hangs loose below the jaw upon the neck, in a kind of dewlap, which takes away much from the general beauty. But whether this be a natural or accidental blemish, I will not take upon me to determine. These animals are often sent 1.s presents to the princes of the East. We are told, that one of the governors of Batavia gave a zebra, which had been sent to him from Africa, to the emperor of Japan, for which he received, as an equivalent for the company, a present, to the value of sixty thousand crowns. Teller also relates, that the Great Mogul gave two thousand ducats for one of them. And it is frequent with the African ambassadors to the court of Constantinople, to bring some of these animals with them, as presents for the Grand Signior. 4 Navendorf. NOTE.-The Dziggtai and the Quagga. The specific characters of the dziggtai are:-His skin is isabella, or light bay in summer, and of a clean hue, and the hair is very long. His mane and dorsal and thriving appearance. In winter it is of a redder line, which enlarges on the crupper, are generally black; and his tail is terminated by a black tuft. He is generally the size of an ordinary wild horse; and his proportions are intermediate between the horse and the ass. He is probably the wild mule of the ancients, and lives in troops in the sandy deserts of Central Asia. Messerschmit was the first who noticed this animal; but we had no precise description till it was given by Pallas. His name in the Mongol language signifies large ear.' His ears are much longer than those of the horse, but straighter and better formed than those of the mule. His head is strong and rather heavy; the forehead narrow and flattened, with a peculiar projection above the nostrils, whence the nose suddenly droops. The bristles or beard are numerous, and about two-and-a-half inches in length; the mane is short and thick; the chest capacious; the back long and curved; and the crupper somewhat thin. The shoulders are narrow, and the limbs light; the pasterns are long, with hoofs like those of the ass; the tail resembles that of a bull, very thick at its base, black, and nearly two feet long, with a thick tuft at its point reaching nearly three inches beyond his hock. The dziggtai is a light and nimble animal; his limbs beautifully fine, straight, and peculiarly formed for speed, which he with flat shank-bones. The knee-joints are long and possesses in an astonishng degree. His air betrays extreme energy, being wild, fiery, and untameable in his disposition. ish brown, the rest of the body is of a clear brown, The head and neck of the quagga are dark blackgrowing paler below, and underneath nearly white. The head and neck are striped with grayish white, longitudinally on the forehead and temples, and | The zebra of the plains was first ascertained by Mr. Burchell to be different from the common or mountain-zebra. The following is Mr. Gray's specific description of the zebra of the plains: Body white; head with numerous narrow brown stripes, which gradually unite together and form a bay nose, the neck and body with alternate broad stripes of black and narrow ones of brown, the latter of which nearly fill up the interstices between the black stripes, and only leave a narrow whitish margin. The dorsal line is narrow, and becomes gradually broader in the hinder part, distinctly margined with white on each side. The belly, legs, and all, quite white; the mane alternately banded with black and white." This beautiful animal differs materially from the common zebra; the ground colour of his body being entirely white, interrupted by a regular series of black stripes commencing on the ridge of the back, and terminating at the bottom of his sides. Betwixt these are narrower and fainter ones of a brownish colour. On the shoulders and over the haunches, these stripes assume somewhat of a bifurcated appearance, between the divisions of which there are a few transverse lines of the same colour; but these suddenly and abruptly disappear, and are not continued on the legs, as in the common zebra. Along the spinal ridge there is a narrow longitudinal line bordered on each side with white. The mane is long, stiff, and erect, with the transverse bands of the neck broadly continued through it, and distinctly tipped with deep black. The lines of the face are narrow, and perfectly regular; from the centre of the forehead they radiate downwards over each eye; along the front of the muzzle they are longitudinal, with the outer ones slighty curved outwards; and on the sides they form broader transverse fillets. From where the bands unite on the extremity of the muzzle, the nose, and the upper lip, those parts become nearly of a uniform blackish brown. The tail is of a yellowish white. There is no longitudinal ventral line; and the back part of the ears is occupied towards the tips by patches of black. The hoofs are moderately large, deep in front, and shallow behind, and considerably expanded at their margin, CHAP. I. INTRODUCTION. Of all animals, those that chew the cud are the most harmless, and the most easily tamed.. As they live entirely upon vegetables, it is neither their interest nor their pleasure to make war upon the rest of the brute creation; content with the pastures where they are placed, they seldom desire to change, while they are furnished with a proper supply; and fearing nothing from each other, they generally go in herds for their mutual security. All the fiercest of the carnivorous kinds seek their food in gloomy solitude; these, on the contrary, range together; the very meanest of them are found to unite in each other's defence; and the hare itself is a gregarious animal, in those countries where it has no other enemies but the beasts of the forest to guard against. As the food of ruminant animals is entirely of the vegetable kind, and as this is very easily procured, so these animals seem naturally more indolent and less artful than those of the carnivorous kinds; and as their appetites are more simple, their instincts seem to be less capable of variation. The fox or the wolf are for ever prowling; their long habits of want give them a degree of sharpness and cunning; their life is a continued scene of stratagem and escape; but the patient ox, or the deer, enjoy the repast that nature has abundantly provided; certain of subsistence, and content with security. As nature has furnished these animals with an appetite for such coarse and simple nutriment, so she has enlarged the capacity of the intestines, to take in a greater supply. In the carnivorous kinds, as their food is nourishing and juicy, their stomachs are but small, and their intestines short; but in these, whose pasture is coarse, and where much must be accumulated before any quantity of nourishment can be obtained, their stomachs are large and numerous, and their intestines long and muscular. The bowels of a ruminating | serve their warmth; and they are extended to a animal may be considered as an elaboratory, with much greater length, so as to extract every part vessels in it, fitted for various transmutations. of that nourishment which their vegetable food It requires a long and tedious process before so scantily supplies. grass can be transmuted into flesh; and for this purpose, nature, in general, has furnished such animals as feed upon grass with four stomachs, through which the food successively passes and undergoes the proper separations.1 In this manner are all quadrupeds of the cow, the sheep, or the deer kind, seen to ruminate ; being thus furnished with four stomachs for the macerating of their food. These, therefore, may most properly be called the ruminant kinds; although there are many others that have this quality in a less observable degree. The rhinoceros, the camel, the horse, the rabbit, the mar tervals, although they are not furnished with stomachs like the former. But not these alone, there are numberless other animals that appear to ruminate; not only birds but fishes and insects. Among birds are the pelican, the stork, the heron, the pigeon, and the turtle: these have a power of disgorging their food to feed their young. Among fishes are lobsters, crabs, and that fish called the dorado. The salmon also is said to be of this number: and, if we may believe Ovid, the scarus likewise; of which he says,2 Of the four stomachs with which ruminant animals are furnished, the first is called the paunch, which receives the food after it has been slightly chewed; the second is called the honey-motte, and the squirrel, all chew the cud by incomb, and is properly nothing more than a continuation of the former; these two, which are very capacious, the animal fills as fast as it can, and then lies down to ruminate; which may be properly considered as a kind of vomiting without effort or pain. The two stomachs above mentioned being filled with as much as they can contain, and the grass, which was slightly chewed, beginning to swell with the heat of the situation, it dilates the stomachs, and these again contract upon their contents. The aliment, thus squeezed, has but two passages to escape at; one into the third stomach, which is very narrow; and the other back, by the gullet, into the mouth, which is wider. The greatest quantity, therefore, is driven back, through the largest aperture, into the mouth to be chewed a second time; while a small part, and that only the most liquid, is driven into the third stomach, through the orifice which is so small. The food which is driven to the mouth, and chewed a second time, is thus rendered more soft and moist, and becomes at last liquid enough to pass into the conduit that goes to the third stomach, where it undergoes a still farther comminution. In this stomach, which is called the manifold, from the number of its leaves, all which tend to promote digestion, the grass has the appearance of boiled spinnage, but not yet sufficiently reduced, so as to make a part of the animal's nourishment; it requires the operation of the fourth stomach for this purpose, where it undergoes a complete maceration, and is separated to be turned into chyle. But nature has not been less careful in another respect, in fitting the intestines of these animals for their food. In the carnivorous kinds they are thin and lean; but in ruminating animals they are strong, fleshy, and well covered with fat. Every precaution seems taken that can help their disgestion; their stomach is strong and muscular, the more readily to act upon its contents; their intestines are lined with fat, the better to pre 1 All quadrupeds that chew the cud have suet instead of the soft fat of other animals; and they have the awkward habit of rising, when in a recumbent posture, upon their hind legs first. A cow, when she rises from the ground, places herself on the foreknees, and then lifts up the whole hinder parts. A horse springs up first on his fore-legs, and then raises up his hinder parts. This may be owing to the different conformation of the stomach.-ED. Of all the fish that graze beneath the flood, He only ruminates his former food. Of insects, the ruminating tribe is still larger; the mole, the cricket, the wasp, the drone, the bee, the grasshopper, and the beetle. All these animals either actually chew the cud, or seem at least to ruminate. They have the stomach composed of muscular fibres, by means whereof the food is ground up and down, in the same manner as in those which are particularly distinguished by the appellation of ruminants. But not these alone; men themselves have 2 At contra herbosa pisces laxantur arena, |