204 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol.XII. 



No. II,— THE ETHIOPIAN WART HOG, 

 (^PIIA COCn.ER US yE TIIIOPICUS.) 



{With a Plate) 



In his paper on the Mammalia of Somali Land in Vol, ^1 of the Society's 

 Journal, Mr, Inverarity has introduced us to the Wart Hog and given sports- 

 men a fund of information about his measurements and habits, which it would 

 be superfluous for me to repeat here ; suflice it to say, that the tushes of the 

 specimen figured in the plate measure, on the outside curve : 



Upper Tnsh lOJ" 



Lower do ^ 9" 



The impressions which follow, as an accompaniment to the plate, are 

 recorded in the hope that some of them may prove of interest to the general 

 reader. 



Let me first make it clear that the christian name of this Hog has no con- 

 nection with '' Water," I have had a couple of stuffed boars'* heads on the 

 walls of my dining room for some years, and my experience in the occasional 

 role of cicerone during that time has shewn me that it is quite a common 

 impression among sportsmen and others, not personally acquainted with the 

 animal, that the word " Wart " is the Dutch or other foreign rendering of 

 " Water." '' Wart " is of course the English word and refers to the four ex- 

 crescences or warts on the face, but I think it well to repeat the fact, even 

 at the risk of being accused of instructing my grandmother in the art of 

 preparing eggs for the cabinet. The mistake after all is not an unnatural 

 one, for so many of the popular names of the big game of East Africa have 

 a Dutch origin. 



Formerly Zoologists (those of Germany at any rate) made two species of 

 the Wart Hog, differentiating the breed found at the Cape and in South 

 Africa generally from that met with further North and in Central Africa. 

 The former variety was classified as " yEthiopicus " and the latter as " jifn- 

 canus." The differences, however, such as they were, were small and unim- 

 portant, and it has eventually been decided, as far as I can gather, to make the 

 Wart Hog a single species under the name of " Phacochcerus cethioplcus." It 

 is probably found all over the continent of Africa, though rare now in Cape 

 Colony and the south generally — -it is, however, as a native of the Somali 

 Protectorate that I am now dealing with the animal. 



In the matter of grotesque ugliness an old Wart Hog boar may, I think, 

 aafely aspire to "lick creation " with small fear of competition, I ask you, 

 gentle reader, can you conceive any living creature with a more villainously 

 ugly physiognomy than the subject of the accompanying plate ? Mark the 

 huge head, out of all proportion to the rest of the body ; the short bull- 

 neck ; the extraordinary development of the upper lip ; the beady, evil 

 looking eyes with their apoplectic expression ; the narrow forehead T'ith its 



