Of Celebes. 



283 



and slender legs, and curved tusks resembling horns. This 

 extraordinary creature resembles a pig in general appearance, 

 but it does not dig with its snout, as it feeds on fallen fruits. 

 The tusks of the lower jaw are very long and sharp, but the 

 upper ones, instead of growing downward in the usual way, 

 are completely reversed, growing upward out of bony sockets 

 through the skin on each side of the snout, curving backward 

 to near the eyes, and in old animals often reaching eight or 



SKULL or BABIRUSA. 



ten inches in length. It is difficult to understand what can 

 be the use of these extraordinary horn-like teeth. Some of 

 the old writers supposed that they served as hooks, by which 

 the creature could rest its head on a branch. But the way 

 in which they iisually diverge just over and in front of the 

 eye has suggested the more probable idea that they serve to 

 ►gxiard these organs from thorns and spines while hunting for 

 fallen fruits amonff the tangled thickets of rattans and other 



