44 MAMMALIA OF INDIA. 
compare the fore-foot of a deer or pig with our own hand ; what we call 
the knee of the former is merely our wrist. The bones which run 
through the palm of the hand to the knuckles are the metacarpals ; they 
are five in number, corresponding with the thumb and four fingers. In 
the Artiodactyla—or, I should say, in the Ungulata generally—the thumb is 
entirely wanting ; in the Artiodactyla the fore and 
little fingers are shorter, rudimentary, or entirely 
wanting, and the two centre metacarpals, the 
middle and ring fingers are prolonged into what 
we call the leg below the knee in these animals, 
which consist of separate or fused bones termi- 
nated by the usual three joints of the finger, on 
the last of which is placed the hoof. 
The two halves are always symmetrical, and 
from this we may affirm that it is the thumb and 
not the little finger which is absent, for we know 
that, counting from the knuckles, our fingers have 
three joints, whereas the thumb has only two; so 
in the digits of the Artiodactyla are three joints at 
the end of each metacarpal. In the pig the meta- 
carpals of the fore and little fingers are produced 
from the carpus or wrist, or, as is popularly termed 
in the case of these animals, the knee. ‘They are 
more attenuated in the chevrotains or deerlets, of 
which our Indian mouse-deer is an example; in 
the Cervide they are more rudimentary, detached 
wy WZ from the carpus, and are suspended free and low 
Bones of a Pig’s foot. down, forming the little hoof-points behind ; and 
See alco p:i528-) a little above the proper hoofs in these the two 
large metacarpals are more or less joined or fused into one bone, and 
they are still more so in the camel, in which the fore and little finger 
bones are entirely absent. In the giraffe and prong-horn antelope they 
are also wanting. ‘The hind feet are similarly constructed.* 
Of the non-ruminantia we have only the Suide—the peccaries 
belonging to America, and the hippopotami to Africa. 
FAMILY SUIDA:—THE HOGS. 
These have incisors in both jaws, which vary in number, the lower 
ones slanting forward. ‘Their canines are very large and directed 
outwards and upwards in a curve, grinding against each other to a sharp 
edge and fine point. Their metacarpal bones are four in number, and 
are all distinct, in which respect they differ from the peccaries, in which 
* See notes in Appendix C. 
