Chapter XXIII.

1. The male and female ass begin to copulate at thirty months old, and shed their first teeth at the same period. They lose their second pair of teeth six months afterwards, and their third and fourth in the same way. These fourth teeth are called the marking teeth. Sometimes the ass has become pregnant and brought up its young at a year old. The she ass parts with the semen after coition, if she is not prevented; and therefore, immediately after coition, they beat her and drive her about. She foals in the twelfth month, and generally produces one foal, for this is their nature, though cases of twin births have occurred. If an ass mounts upon a mare, he destroys her fœtus, as I observed before. But the horse does not destroy the fœtus of the ass, if the mare has been impregnated by a he ass.

2. The pregnant female has milk at the end of ten months. After parturition, she will admit the male on the seventh day, and is very easily impregnated at that period. She will also receive it afterwards. If she does not produce young before losing her marking teeth, she can never be impregnated all the rest of her life. She does not like men to be witnesses of her parturition, nor will she produce her young in the day time; but when it is dark she retires, and so produces her young. She continues to procreate during her whole life, if she has begun before losing her marking teeth. The ass lives more than thirty years, and the female longer than the male. When a horse copulates with an ass, or a he ass with a mare, abortion is more frequent than between congeners, a horse with a mare, or two asses together. When the horse and ass are mixed together, the period of gestation follows from the male parent. I mean to say that it takes the same time as if the parents had been congeners; but in size, form, and strength the produce of their union generally resembles the female parent.

3. If the union takes place frequently, and sufficient time is not allowed to intervene, the female soon becomes barren. For which reason those who attend to this business do not permit them to have continual intercourse, but interpose a proper interval. The mare will not admit the he ass, nor the she ass the horse, unless the he ass has been suckled by a mare. They are careful, therefore, to admit only those asses which they call hippothelæ, i.e. asses which have been suckled by a mare. These copulate by force in the pastures, like horses.