eneral they refuse sustenance at first, and about one-third
only of those taken are reared; but these command high prices, and
find a ready sale with the native princes. The profits are shared
by the party, who do not attempt a second chase in the same year,
lest they should scare the herd from the district, as these men regard
the sale of a few ghor-khurs annually as a regular source of
subsistence.'

"This wild ass is very shy and difficult to approach, and has great
speed. A full-grown one has, however, been run down fairly and
speared more than once."

I remember we had a pair of these asses in the Zoological Gardens
at Lahore in 1868; they were to a certain extent tame, but very
skittish, and would whinny and kick on being approached. I never
heard of their being mounted.

It is closely allied to, if not identical with, the wild ass of
Assyria (_Equus hemippus_). The Hon. Charles Murray, who presented
one of the pair in the London Zoological Gardens in 1862, wrote the
following account of it to Dr. Sclater: "The ghour or kherdecht of
the Persians is doubtless the onager of the ancients. Your specimen
was caught when a foal on the range of mountains which stretch from
Kermanshah on the west in a south-easterly direction to Shiraz; these
are inhabited by several wild and half-independent tribes, the most
powerful of which are the Buchtzari. The ghour is a remarkably fleet
animal, and moreover so shy and enduring that he can rarely be
overtaken by the best mounted horsemen in Persia. For this reason
they chase them now, as they did in the time of Xenophon, by placing
relays of horsemen at intervals of eight or ten miles. These relays
take up the chase successively and tire down the ghour. The flesh
of the ghour is esteemed a great delicacy, not being held unclean
by the Moslem, as it was in the Mosaic code. I do not know whether
this species is ever known to bray like the ordinary domestic ass.
Your animal, whilst under my care, used to emit short squeaks and
sometimes snorts not unlike those of a deer, but she was so young
at the time that her voice may not have acquired its mature
intonation."

NO. 427. EQUUS HEMIONUS.
_The Kiang or Wild Ass of Thibet_.

NATIVE NAMES.--_Kiang_ or _Dizightai_, Thibetan.

HABITAT.--Thibet and Central Asia; Ladakh.

DESCRIPTION.--Darker in hue than the _ghor-khur_, especially on the
flanks, contrasting abruptly with the white of the under-parts. It
has the dark line along