MAMMALS OF THE MEXICAN BOUNDARY. 159 



Family TAYASSUID.^." 



PECCARIES. 



Snout as iu Suid*. Dentition: '' §,''], />i, //' I; tolal oS. Incisors 

 rot)ted ; uppiT canines directed downward, with sharp cutting Iiinder 

 edges. Toes, four on the fore feet and three on the hind feet (the 

 fiftli wanting). Stomach complex. A ca?cum. Confined to the New 

 World. ^ {Floicer and Lydekker.) 



Genus TAYASSU Fischer (1814). <•• 



Tayassu Fischer. Zoognosia, III, 1814, p. 284. Type. — Toijassii pccari 

 Fischer=»s'».s alhimstri.s Illiger. 

 Dicotyles G. Cuvieb, Regne Aiiiiual. I. 1817, p. 2'61~TayassH Fisher. 

 ^otophorun G. Fischer, Mi'iii. Soc. Imp. des Nat. tie Moscou, V. 181T, p. 418, 

 Replacing TayansH. 



The genus Tayas.su, containing the xVmerican pigs, dilfers from 

 Sv.s and the other Old World genera in having but four upper 

 incisors, and only three iDremolars on each side aboA^e and below, the 

 derital fonnula being l 1^^, c ^\, pm |^g, ni |^3=38 (fig. 5); their 

 median metacarpal and metatarsal bones are ankylosed into caiinon- 



o For a plea for the retention of the names Dicotyles and Dicotylidre, see Gill, 

 I'roc. Biol. Soc, Washington, XV, p. 38, March .j, 1902 ; see also Thomas, idem, 

 pp. 15.3, 197 ; also Allen, Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., XVI, 1902, pp. 162, 107. 



''Altliough not indigenous to tlie region the family Suidje is represented by 

 feral swine: 



SUS SCROFA DOMESTICUS, 



FERAL DOMESTIC HOG. 



Wild domestic pigs are numerous in many parts of Texas and Mexico, 

 along the Rio Grande, and are particularly abundant and ferocious about the 

 mouth of the Colorado River, in Sonora. If attacked they become dangerous 

 foes. While camped opposite the mouth of Hardy River, at tide water close to 

 the mouth of the Colorado, several large pigs were Ivilled, and their excellent 

 Hesh added to our bill of fare. These pigs, descended from Berkshire stock, 

 were black and of extraordinary size. The skull of an adult male, from near the 

 !uouth of the Colorado River (No. 6035G U.S.N.M.), measures: Greatest length, 

 33") mm.; basal length, .342; basilar length (to tip of premaxillary). 292; 

 palatal length to tip of premaxillary, 214; width of palate at first premolar, .51 ; 

 zygomatic breadth, 169; least interorbital breadth, 81; length of nasals, 168; 

 greatest breadth of both nasals together, 3.5; occipital depth (to lower rim of 

 foramen magnum », 124. 



<" Elliot, in his Land and Sea Mannnals of Middle America and the West In- 

 dies (Field Columbian Museum, publication 95, zoological series, IV, Pt. I, 1904, 

 pp. 61-68, fig. xxn and plates xxv-xxviii), uses the generic name Tafja-ssii Frisch 

 (Das Natur-Syst. vierfiiss. Thiere, in Tabellen, 3 Tab. Gen., 177.5. Tyi>e, Sus 

 {(ijacii LinniPus). and uses the family name Tdf/assuhl'r. See, however. Thomas 

 and Miller in Ann. and Mag. Nat. Ilist., 7th ser., XVI, pp. 461-464, October, 

 1905. 



