An Interesting Donkey Hybrid

Abstract

IN his letter on the “Origin of the Domestic ‘Blotched’ Tabby Cat” (NATURE, September 8, p. 298), Mr. Vickers says, “after much diligent search I have been unable to find a single instance in which complete segregation has taken place in respect of all specific characters when two well-defined species are crossed.” Our knowledge of specific characters is too limited to make such a claim provable if put forward; but I have recently seen a hybrid between two very distinct species which, at all events, approaches that standard. This is a donkey belonging to Sir Claud Alexander, Bart., which he tells me was bred by Hagenbeck between a male dziggetai, or Mongolian donkey (Equus hemionus), and a female Nubian donkey (Equus asinus). Both these gentlemen are well acquainted with the species in question, which, as every zoologist knows, are very distinct forms. Yet, unless I had been told that the animal was a hybrid, I should unhesitatingly have identified, her as a pure-bred African donkey. Her colour is grey, her legs are strongly barred with black, and she has a sharply defined black shoulder-stripe and black mottling at the base of the long ears. All these characters belong essentially to the African, as opposed to the Asiatic, species.