The ass has undergone but few changes, even though subjected to the most rigid servitude, for his nature is so stubborn, that it equally resists ill treatment, and the inconveniences of a foreign climate and coarse food. Though he is a native of hot countries, he can live and even multiply without any assistance from man in temperate climates. Formerly there were onagres, or wild asses, in the desarts of Asia Minor, but at present there are very few, and are only to be found in numbers in the desarts of Tartary. The Daurian mule, called _czigithai_ by the Mongol Tartars, is, probably, the same animal as the onagre of the Asiatic provinces; as the former differs only from the latter by the length and colour of the hair, which, according to Mr. Bell, seems to be undulated with brown and white.[AG] These czigithais are found in the forests of Tartary, even to the 51st, and 52d degree of latitude. They must not be confounded with the zebra, whose colours are more bright, and quite otherwise disposed; besides the zebra forms a particular species, as different from that of the ass, as from the horse. The only remarkable degradation of the ass is that the skin, in a domestic state has become more pliant and lost those small tubercles which are found scattered over the onagre, and of which the people of the Levant make what is known here by the name of _Shagreen_. [Footnote AG: Perhaps Mr. Bell, who says he only saw the skins of these animals, may have seen the skins of the zebra instead. For other travellers do not mention that the _czigithais_ or _onagres_ of Dauria are streaked with brown and white like the zebra; besides, there are in the cabinet at St. Petersburg, skins of the zebra and skins of the _czigithais_, both of which are shewn to travellers.]