388 MERISTIC VARIATION. [part i. 



instead of four. The carpus and tarsus appear to have also been 

 changed in connexion with this unification of the digits, for in the 

 distal series at least the normal number of bones was not present. 

 [The feet had been cut off across the tarsus and carpus before 

 being received. By kind permission of the authorities at Alfort 

 I examined these specimens and made the sketches in Fig. 118. 

 I could not satisfactorily identify the bones of carpus and tarsus. 

 The proximal parts were covered by a large exostosis.] The 

 extensor of the phalanges ended in three tendons only, and the 

 same was true of the deep and superficial flexors. The central 

 tendon in each case however shewed signs of its double nature. 

 Barrier, Rec. mid. ve'ter., 1884, Ser. 6, Tom. xiii. p. 491. 



584 A skeleton of a solid-hoofed pig exists in the Museum of the Royal 

 College of Surgeons of Edinburgh which was presented by Sir Neil 

 Menzies of Rannoch, Perthshire. Inquiries instituted by Struthers 

 (1863) elicited the following facts. 



" The solid-hoofed pig has been well known and abundant on the 

 estates of Sir Neil Menzies at Rannoch for the last forty years. 

 Most, if not all of them, were black. They were smaller than the 

 ordinary swine, and seem to have had shorter ears. They liked the 

 same food and pasture as the common swine, and showed no antipathy 

 to herd with them. They were more easily fattened, though they did 

 not attain so large a size as the ordinary swine ; their flesh was more 

 sweet and tender, but some of the Highlanders had a prejudice against 

 eating the flesh of pigs which did not " divide the hoof," unaware 

 apparently that the Mosaic prohibition applied to all pigs. A male 

 and female of the solid-hoofed kind w T as brought to Rannoch forty 

 years ago, by the late Sir Neil Menzies, which was the commencement 

 of the breed there ; but I have not been able to learn Avhere they were 

 brought from. Although they did not breed faster than the common 

 kind, they multiplied rapidly, in consequence of being preserved, so 

 that the flock increased to several hundred. 



" At first, care was taken to keep them separate, on purpose to 

 make them breed with each other, but after they became numerous 

 they herded promiscuously with the common swine. As might be 

 expected in a promiscuous flock, some of the young pigs had solid and 

 some cloven feet, but I am unable as yet to say whether any definite 

 result was ascertained as to the effect of crossing ; whether any experi- 

 ments were tried as to crossing ; or whether after the promiscuous 

 herding, some of the pigs of the same brood presented cloven and 

 some solid hoofs. 



" No pig was ever known there with some of its feet solid and 

 some cloven ; nor, so far as is known, was there any instance of young 

 born with cloven feet, when both parents were known to be solid- 

 hoofed. The numbers diminished — for what cause is not apparent ; 

 so that last year there was only one or two — one of them a boar, 

 which died ; and now the solid-hoofed breed appears to be extinct in 

 Rannoch." 



585. " Fore foot. — The distal phalanges of the two greater toes are re- 

 presented by one great ungual phalanx, resembling that of the Horse, 



