Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 7, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 March 1893 — WILD ASSES. [ARTICLE]

WILD ASSES.

They Are Beautiful Creatures, Utterly Different from the Domestic. The wild ass is a creature to admire. His ears are not so ridiculously long as : o e of his domesticated brother and ',,ie e is also a black mark running a ong the spine, and another across the t- ulders. He is a handsome, swift, and vrjwerful animal, hardly to be recognized as of the same 6tock with the dep cerate, scrubby creatures which we 4 i;e in our own country, worn down by cruelty, ill-usage, and fatigue, ragged from neglect, gaunt from hunger, their natural spirit gone, and ite place suppled by a mixture of obstinacy and c: nu ng, contrasting sharply with the s i t, spirited animals that roam at largo over the plains of Persia, India, and Arabia. In the East, where the ass is comparatively a noble animal, it is used for ruing almost exclusively by the ri h ;nd great. The native ass of Mesopotamia is of large size, and the white s .<■ ie are most esteemed, being in olden !i > e the honored animals for carrying o eiai dignitarjes, kings, pro hcs, > iges. From the time that ho; - oecame common in Palestine, .ss - c.n to have fallen into disrepute > that our blessed Lord's ridin r t«. is referred to by the Drop!. e , . .s as showing His humility: "Btl,i king will come to the * * jo riding upon an ass.” k ~i ass, seldom found now west o' t .nran, has a short mane of >i ly hair, and a stripe of dark fc: : o’runs along the ridge of the ba i. he mane to the tail; it neighs like se, flies at a trot, herds in .’rov - more fleetthan ahorse, dwells in . e places, and’ is very sby: it ifr.s . er legs and carries its head 1; r than the domestic ass. It is L viirited and wary, trying to tht th jhi the powers of the hunter, and i r ; lincipal object of the chase in Persia. •re it is prized as the noblest of game - -t troops of wild asses roam over the ■ - atic deserts, migrating in summer a, north as the Ural, and extends. o er Tartary, Mesopotamia, Persia, an 1 i indostan. Layard tells us that in Perea they equal the gazelle in fleetness a id to overtake them is a feat rarely accomplished by the swiftest of mates 1 hoy move in herds, each having a le a < ■ .•• ho goes at the head and is always i. the watch; If he observes a hunter iu goes round and round him, and if h buspects danger he rejoins the herd a it co nmunicates with them, and all set o„ at a gallop.