42 A POST-PLIOCENE ARTIODACTYLE ; 
The following paper was read :— 
A POST-PLIOCENE ARTIODACTY2E.- 
BY 
C., W, ae Vas, Dias: 
(Read on 7th May, 1886.) 
(PLATE I.) 
BEFORE the advent of the white man and his familiars on 
Australian soil, there seems to have been no word for pig 
in the tongue of any native tribe. We must infer that the 
existence of the animal was unknown throughout the 
country. It is truly a remarkable fact that New Guinea 
swine have never, to our knowledge, accomplished the short 
passage between the northern and southern shores of Torres 
Straits, or, having done so, failed to establish themselves 
where the European pig finds it easy to recover and main- 
tain its independence. It must be confessed that Northern 
Australia is, by reason of its fitful rainfall, not eminently 
adapted as a whole to the habits of the animal, still its 
scrubs and river banks would, previous to our occupation 
of the country, have been able to afford food and shelter to 
a goodly population of the kind, unless, indeed, native 
improvidence effected its destruction. What, then, if we 
assume that a pig or pig-like beast has been a dweller in 
the land in past time, and has perished utterly from its 
face? Shall we not be more than ever impressed with the 
breadth, if not totality, of the eclipse to which the 
vertebrate fauna of our geological yesterday appears to 
have been subjected, more than ever curious to know the 
physical geography, its causes and reactions which wrought 
the disappearance of a creature so tenacious of life as well 
as purpose as the pig, yet permitted the descent of a new 
though weaker world of marsupial life? The assumption is 
indeed improbable in the ratio of the difficulty it adds to 
that already felt when we attempt to account for the change 
