735 



SUS. 



better adapted for tearing than for cutting ; the cheek 

 teeth are different in their character, none of them 

 are grinders, but the ones toward the front are par- 

 tially trenchant, and those toward the rear are more 

 tuberculous ; the canines, which are large in the 

 males only, continue growing during the whole life 

 of the animal, but they can scarcely be in any way 

 regarded as feeding instruments ; they grow|outwards 

 and upwards, and in the old animals, in which they 

 acquire much size and strength, they curve back- 

 wards at the points, and are very formidable weapons, 

 both on account of their uneven size and form, and 

 of the force and determination with which the animal 

 can use them ; the muzzle is lengthened into a snout, 

 which has a slight cartilaginous enlargement at the 

 end, is supported by a peculiar bone, capable of some 

 motion, and very abundantly supplied with nerves, 

 so that it is among the most essential parts of the 

 body. The toes are four, of which the two middle 

 ones only are sufficiently developed for being the 

 common points of support to the body in walking, 

 but the other two are more developed than the cor- 

 responding ones of the ruminating animals, and are 

 furnished with small and pointed hoofs. The two 

 principal toes have some lateral motion, and can be 

 brought together or separated, and where they are 

 far separated from each other the two small ones 

 come in contact with the ground, and the plant of the 

 foot is considerably enlarged. This structure of the 

 foot is, as we shall see, very well adapted to the 

 surfaces upon which the animals range when in a 

 state of nature. The females have twelve mamma;, 

 some pectoral and some ventral, and the litters of 

 young are numerous. The skin is thick, but soft 

 and pliable, capable of much extension, but not con- 

 stricting so tightly as that of many other mammalia. 

 The covering consists of stiff bristles, each of which 

 is formed of several small filaments firmly soldered 

 together, except at the points, where they are often 

 separated. Below this there is sometimes a sort of 

 coarse woolly hair ; but both parts of the covering 

 vary much w'ith the climate, and in the domesticated 

 ones with the kind, some being very smooth in the 

 coat, and others almost naked. They have a ten- 

 dency to accumulate under the skin a great quantity 

 of fat, which is popularly called lard, and is something 

 intermediate between the fat of other mammalia and 

 the blubber of the Celacea. In very hot countries 

 this fat does not accumulate in such quantity as in 

 colder climates, and very cold latitudes are not 

 favourable to the animals. 



They occur in both continents ; but the American 

 ones are so different from those of the eastern conti- 

 nent that they require to be separated as a distinct 

 subgenus. They are of a much smaller size than the 

 eastern ones, but less useful to man, and more limited 

 in their distribution, being met with only in the humid 

 woods of the central parts of South America, to the 

 eastward of the Andes ; but in some parts of these 

 woods they are very numerous. In all places of the 

 world they are partial to humid places, fond of wal- 

 lowing in the mire, and of basking in the sun near the 

 margins of pools and streams. 



In the eastern continent they are far more widely 

 distributed than in America ; but always more abun- 

 dant in the damp forests of tropical countries than 

 in higher latitudes. In Europe they occur in a wild 

 state, only in a few of the more wooded parts of the 

 centre and the south ; but they once appear to have 



been much more general. For many years there 

 have been no wild hogs in any part of Britain, but 

 there are many traditional accounts of their former 

 abundance. In the forests of south-eastern Asia, 

 and the rich parts of Africa, they are more 

 plentiful ; and they are distributed to many remote 

 isles in the Pacific. In many places, however, it 

 is much more difficult to distinguish between wood 

 hogs which are natives and aborigines, and those 

 that have been introduced by the people, and have 

 been turned loose in the woods and multiplied 

 there, than it is in the case of many other animals. 

 Yet in the case of others there are instances in which 

 we should be very apt to regard introduced ani- 

 mals not only as aboriginal natives, but as the most 

 truly natural and characteristic of the country of any 

 animals that are to be met with there. This is re- 

 markably the case with the ox and the horse on the 

 rude plains of South America. We know well from 

 the history that there was not a vestige of any animal 

 resembling them previous to their introduction from 

 Europe ; and yet they now literally swarm, as if that 

 were the place of all the globe most favourable to 

 them. It may be the case with the wild hogs of 

 New Guinea and the Pacific Isles farther to the east ; 

 and this appears the more likely from the fact that 

 they are not found except on islands, the shores of 

 which at least are peopled by a race appearing to be 

 of the same climatal variety of mankind as the 

 Malays. Indeed the tame hogs of the east of Asia 

 appear to be from a different variety of wild ones 

 from that of which the remnant is still to be met 

 with in the forests of Europe. 



Hogs in a wild state are much more numerous and 

 widely distributed than either oxen or sheep ; but it 

 is not on this account the less difficult to trace the 

 parentage of the tame ones, or fix with any thing like 

 certainty the locality of any, or at least all, of those 

 that are found wild. From the fact of the hog being 

 possessed by many races of rude men, who have neither 

 the ox nor the sheep, it is very probable that it was 

 the first animal that man domesticated, and probably 

 the first that he killed in the wild forests. The hog 

 is much more an animal of the tangled woods than 

 any other of those which are, on account of their 

 size, valuable as animals of the chase. From the con- 

 cealed situations in which they are found, and their 

 habits of basking in the little openings of the woods, 

 they are more easily approached within the range of 

 an arrow, a javelin, or even a club or other manual 

 weapons, than animals which range in the open 

 places, and set a watch when they feed. They are 

 also much slower in their movements, and retreat 

 to shorter distances, making more noise and bustle in 

 their retreat ; and thus they are more easily followed. 

 The rate at which they breed alo conspires to ren- 

 der them very capable of keeping up their numbers 

 with a large surplus in those woods where fallen 

 fruits at one time of the year, and albuminous roots 

 at another, furnish them with an ample and constant 

 supply of food. It is certain that, in former times, 

 very much of the western parts of the eastern 

 continent was covered with thick, damp, and pro- 

 ductive woods, much more so than at the pre- 

 sent time. Various kinds of oak, beech, chestnut, 

 and other trees, abounding with farinaceous and 

 oily fruits, all of them rich, and many of them readily 

 eaten by the rude people of former times, rendered, 

 and where the deciduous forests remain still render, 



