suiDiE. 327 



studied. There is no subject which naturalists living in a diiferent 

 countiy have so entirely negiected, because they have supposed that 

 everything respecting it is known, while the truth is no animals are 

 so imperfectly known or understood. Take, for instance, the Horse, 

 which is so completely naturalized in North and South America, and 

 so locally distributed in Africa — abundant, prosperous, and high- 

 bred in some parts, very rare and, when present, greatly deteriorated 

 in others, even in the same latitudes. It is the same with the Pig. 

 Indeed these large animals, common to a great part of the inhabited 

 world, are less known than the species of the Eats, Mice, SquiiTcls, 

 Bats, and such small and comparatively unimportant animalsj as far 

 as man is concerned, who generally classes them with vermin. 



* The preinulars ]»'r7n(ineHt, forming with the molars a continuous series 

 of teeth. 



Fam. 5. SUID^. 



Head pointed. Snout blunt, slender. Ears large. Body com- 

 pressed. Legs slender. Skin covered with close bristly hairs. 

 Grinders tubercular, with a few separate roots. Canines prismatic, 

 triangular ; upper recurved fi'om the base. Teeth 44 or 40 : — Cut- 

 ting-teeth |- . f ; premolars i • |^ or |- • f ; molars | . | . Tail elongate, 

 rarely absent. Teats 10 or rarely 8. Young of wild races striped 

 on the sides. 



Suina, Grai/, Ann. Phil. 1825 ; List Mamm. B. M. p. 284 ; Bmiap. 



Prod. p. 5 ; Giehel, SdiK/eth. p. 221. 

 Setigera, Fitz. Sitz. Akacl der Wiss. 1864, p. 383. 

 Suidfe, Owen, Odont. i. p. -543 ; Grat/, P. Z. S. 1868, p. 22. 

 Suidere, Lesso7i, X. Tub. E. A. 1842, p. 160. 

 Suidre, § 3, Schinz, Si/st. Verz. ii. p. 344. 



The change in the dentition of the Pig is represented by De Blain- 

 viUe, ' Ostoographie, Onguligrades,' Sus, t. 8, and by Owen, ' Odont.' 

 p. 524, t. 140. Buffon (Hist. Nat. v. p. 110) erroneously says that 

 the milk-teeth of the Pig are not changed, and remain permanent. 

 At page 181 he quotes (Aristotle, Dcs Animaux, lib. 2. chap. 1) 

 further that the Pigs never lose any of their teeth. The crown of 

 the grinders ai'e many-lobed, especially the hinder one, which is 

 larger than the rest. 



"The progressive increase of size in the molar teeth as they are 

 situated further back in the mouth may also be noticed as a family 

 characteristic, which, with the complication of the crown and deve- 

 lopment of the teeth, reaches its maximum in the Phacochoeres." — 

 Owen, Odont. p. 544. 



