MAMMALS. 593 



tusks in the upper jaw of the male curve upward during 

 the prime of life, and from being pointed serve as formid- 

 able weapons. The tusks in the lower jaw are sharper 

 than those in the upper, but from their shortness it seems 

 hardly possible that they can be used as weapons of attack. 

 They must, however, greatly strengt is en those iu the upper 

 jaw, from being ground so as to fit closely against their 

 bases. Neither the upper nor the lower tusks appear to 

 have been specially modified to act as guards, though no 

 doubt they are to a certain extent used for this purpose. 

 But the wart-hog is not destitute of other special means 

 of protection, for it has on each side of the face, 

 beneath the eyes, a rather stiff, yet flexible cartilaginous 

 oblong pad (see fig. 67), which projects two or three inches 

 outward; and it appeared to Mr. Bartlett and myself, 

 when viewing; the living animal, that these pads, when 

 struck from beneath by the tus is of an opponent, would 

 be turned upward, and would thus admirably protect 

 the somewhat prominent eyes. I may add, on the 

 authority of Mr. Bartlett, that these boars when fight- 

 ing stand directly face to face. 



Lastly, the African river-hog (PctomocJioents penicil- 

 latus) has a hard cartilaginous knob on each side of the 

 face beneath the eyes, which answers to the flexible pad 

 of the wart-hog; it has also two bony prominences on the 

 upper jaw above the nostrils. A boar of this species in 

 the Zoological Gardens recently broke into the cage of 

 the wart-hog. They fought all night long, and were 

 found in the morning much exhausted, but not seriously 

 wounded. It is a significant fact, as showing the purposes 

 of the above described projections and excrescences, that 

 these were covered with blood, and were scored and abraded 

 in an extraordinary manner. 



Although the males of so many members of the pig 

 family are provided with weapons, aiid, as we have just seen, 

 with means of defense, these weapons seem to have' been 

 acquired within a rather late geological period. Dr. For- 

 sytli Major specifies* several miocene species, in none of 

 which do the tusks appear to have been largely developed 

 in the males; and Prof. Rutimeyer was formerly struck 

 with this same fact. 



*" Atti della Soc. Italiana di Sc. Nat." 1873, vol. xv, fasc. iv 



