18 THE HOG. 



the wild species is entirely unknown. For example, the South Sea 

 Islands, on their discovery by Europeans, were found to be well 

 stocked with a small black-legged hog ; and the traditionary belief 

 of the people, in regard to the original introduction of these animals, 

 showed that they were supposed to be as anciently descended as the 

 people themselves. Yet the latter had no knowledge of the wild 

 boar or any other animal of the hog kind, from which the domestic 

 breed might have been supposed to be derived. The hog is in these 

 islands the principal quadruped, and is more carefully cultivated 

 than any other. The bread-fruit tree, either in the natural state or 

 formed into sour paste, is its favorite food, and it is also abundantly 

 supplied with yams, eddoes, and other vegetables. This choice of a 

 nutritive and abundant diet, according to Foster, renders the flesh 

 juicy and delicious; and the fat, though rich, is not less delicate to 

 the taste than the finest butter. The Otaheitans and other South Sea 

 Islanders were in the habit of presenting pigs at the morais, as the 

 most savory and acceptable offering to their deities which they had i; 

 in their power to bestow. They covered the sacred pig with a piece 

 of fine cloth, and left it to decay near the hallowed spot." 



The pigs of these islands are evidently of the Cochin-Chinese or 

 Siamese variety, or at least are closely allied to it, and were no 

 doubt introduced at some remote period by the colonists of Malay- 

 an origin. Cook found the fowl, as well as the hog, at Ulietea and 

 others of the Society Islands. 



It has been doubted, and not without some reason, whether the 

 domestic breed, so widely spread, is in every country attributable 

 to the same specific origin. Certain it is that the various domestic 

 races offer marked distinctive peculiarities, and if Mr. Eyton be 

 correct, differences not only in the length of the snout, size of the 

 ears, and symmetry of the body, but also in the number of the verte- 

 brae of the spinal column. In the Proceedings of the Zoological 

 Society for February 28th, 1837, p. 23, will be found the following 

 observations by T. C. Eyton, Esq., on the osteological peculiarities 

 to which we have alluded : " Having during the last year prepared 

 the skeleton of a male pig of the pure Chinese breed, brought over 

 by Lord Northampton, 1 was surprised to find that a very great 

 difference existed in the number of the vertebrae from that given in 

 the Lefons d? Anatomic Compares, vol. i., ed. 1835, p. 182, under the 

 head either of Sanglier, or Cochon Domestique. A short time 

 afterwards, through the kindness of Sir Rowland Hill, Bart., M. P., 

 I prepared the skeleton of a female pig from Africa; this also differ- 

 ed, as also does the English long-legged sort, as it is commonly 

 called. 



"The following table will show the differences in the number of 

 the vertebrae in each skeleton with those given in the work above 

 quoted : 



