102 POPULAR SCRIPTURE ZOOLOGY.

to make to the ‘she-ass.’? But the natural fierceness of
the zebra renders it, with a few exceptions, almost incapable
of a regular training. But in that memorable passage from
the 9th chapter of Zechariah we have ‘an ass, the foal of a
she-ass, where the terms chamor and athon occur in the
relation of mother and son: this passage shuts the door
against all farther conjecture, by showing that our trans-
lators have properly rendered the words; besides, in the
Arabic, we find the words atken or aten given to the ass in
general.”

The ass, as well as the horse, was interdicted as food by
Moses, from the fact of their both possessing undivided
hoofs; but during the siege of Samaria by Benhadad, king
of Syria, so fearful a famine raged in the city that “an ass’s
head was sold for fourscore pieces of silver.” Some writers
have attempted to prove that the corn measure, homer, is
intended, and not the ass, Aamer ; but, as the arguments are
not very tenable, this brief allusion will be deemed suffi-
cient. The price was nearly equal to ten pounds of our
money, showing forcibly the melancholy situation of the
besieged town.

The passage in the 5th chapter of Judges, “Speak ye
that ride on white asses, ye that sit in judgment, and walk