APPENDIX. 739 



a forest of stiff bristles arising from it, may perhaps be taken as 

 representing to us now what the ancient British domesticated pig 

 was. The old Welsh pig resembles the Scotch in various points 

 characterising an unimproved breed, but its large ears, spoken of 

 familiarly by breeders as being 'as large as newspapers,' indicate 

 that it has been more thoroughly domesticated. Its colour also 

 is more constantly and deeply dark than is that of northern form ^. 

 But the size of the ears and the colouration are both exceedingly 

 variable points. The condition of neglect and comparative freedom 

 in which the still surviving Scotch breed is described as living 

 has no doubt been constant since the earliest times ; and we may, 

 after making some allowances, fairly suppose that it must have 

 produced the same changes in the soft and perishable parts, and 

 so in the entire appearance of the swine of those days, that we can 

 see it has done in those subjected to it now. The bones of the 



^ It is not safe to assume that any appearance of a black colour in a pig of this 

 coiintry shows it to he modern, a s if this colom* could only be due to some cross with 

 the breed known as ' Neapolitan,' and called conveniently by Nathusius, on account of 

 its distribution over the Mediterranean area occupied by Rome in her best days, the 

 ' Roman ' pig. For the colour of the pig is not only exceedingly variable per se, as 

 stated above, and for reasons which we do not know ,• but it changes, as regards entire 

 breeds, xmder the selective action of certain foods, viz. the paint-root, Lachnanthes 

 tinctoria, and buckwheat, Polygonum fagoi:iyrum (see Wyman, Spinola, and Heusinger, 

 citt. Darwin, ' Origin of Species,' sixth edition, p. 9 j ' Domestication,' second edition, 

 ii. p. 332). The ' Roman ' jjig is now, as figured in Low, /. c, of a deep black colour 

 almost miiversally ; but in classical times it was not so any more than the domestic 

 Greek pig w^as of which Ai'istotle tells us (H. A. ii. 2. 14) the wild boar differed from 

 it in being black. It is true that the sow of ^Eneid iii. 392 and viii. 45, ' Alba solo 

 recubans, albi ciroum uljera nati,' is spoken of (viii. 81) as ' subitum atque oculis mirabile 

 monstrum ;' but Servius in loco, who from his date, A. D. 400, must have been familiar 

 enough with 'Roman' pigs, exjjlains the word monstrum thus, 'quia et suhiio et cum 

 triginta porcellis est visa,' which is quite an adequate explanation. Columella also 

 contrasts (vi. 9) a 'grex tiigrcB setcB quani durissima densceque ' with a ' glalrumj^ecus 

 vel etiam pistrinale allium' as being better suited for a ' rcgio frigida et pruinosa.' 

 Hence, though there is no doubt that one of the earliest effects of domestication upon 

 the wild boar stock not uncommonly is to make the colom' white or at least what 

 Youatt calls ' dirty white ' or ' yellowish browm,' there is also no doubt that the reverse 

 of this may be effected by the same process in later stages or through the introduction 

 of new disturbing influences. I incline to think that, though the reverse must hive 

 been the case with several of our common domestic animals, immigrating races of 

 men have usually provided themselves with tame pigs by having recourse to the 

 young of the wild-boar stock available on the area which they have occupied. For 

 whilst wild swine everywhere lend themselves readily to domestication, it must in 

 early times have been very diflicult to transport or import even already domesticated 

 pigs. The contrast in this latter point between the pig and the two animals, wliii'h 

 most certainly of all must have been imported into Europe as domesticated, did not 

 escape the notice of the ancient fabulist who, as i-eferred to by Bochart, Ilierozoicon, 

 ii. 57, p. 698, spoke of the ' porcus, qui cum agno et lupra ad urbem defcrebatur et 

 quvm illi pacate degerent solus se distorqnebaf.' 



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