THE HOG TRIBE. 17 



boar found in the cave of Htitton, in the Mendip hills, with the true 

 fossils of that receptacle, such as the remains of the mammoth, Spe 

 Isean bear, &c. With respect to cave-bones, however, it is sometimes 

 difficult to produce conviction as to the contemporaneity of extinct 

 and recent species." 



This observation applies merely to cave-bones, and not to such as 

 are imbedded in deposits with other remains. 



The oldest fossil remains of the hog, from British strata, which 

 Professor Owen has examined, were from fissures in the red crag 

 ( probably rniocene) of Newbourne, near Woodbridge, Suffolk : 

 " They were associated with teeth of an extinct felis, about the size 

 of a leopard, with those of a bear, and with remains of a large cervus. 

 These mammalian remains were found with the ordinary fossils of 

 the red crag ; they had undergone the same process of trituration, 

 and were impregnated with the same coloring matter, as the associa- 

 ted bones and teeth of fishes, acknowledged to be derived from the 

 regular strata of the red crag. These mammaliferous beds have 

 been proved by Mr. Lyell to be older frhan the fluvio-marine, or 

 Norwich crag, in which remains of the mastodon, rhinoceros, and 

 horse have been discovered ; and still older than the fresh-water 

 pleistocene deposits, from which the remains of the mammoth, rhino- 

 ceros, &c., are obtained in such abundance." To this the Professor 

 adds : " I have met with some satisfactory instances of the associa- 

 tion of fossil remains of a species of hog with those of the mam- 

 moth, in the newer pliocene fresh-water formations of England." 



The most usual situations however, in which the fossilized bones of 

 the hog are met with, are in peat-bogs, often at the depth of many 

 feet, and in association with the remains of the wolf, the beaver, the 

 roebuck, and a gigantic red-deer ; generally they underline the bed 

 of peat, and rest on shell-marl or alluvium. Of the identity of these 

 bones with those of the ordinary wild hog, all doubt has been remov- 

 ed by the most rigorous comparisons ; nevertheless, we do not assert 

 that no other species of sus may not have anciently existed, which, 

 like the mammoth and the mastodon, has become extinct ; we mean 

 only to say that the bones of the sus scrofa are among the fossil 

 remains of our island and the continent of Europe. Professor Owen 

 gives an excellent figure of the fossil skull of a wild boar, from drift 

 in a fissue of the free-stone quarries in the Isle of Portland. 



Leaving the wild hog, let us direct our attention more immedi- 

 ately to that breed which, time immemorial, has been reared in capti- 

 vity, and valued for the sake of its flesh, prepared in different ways 

 as food for man. 



" One of the most singular circumstances," says Mr. Wilson 

 ( Quarterly Journal of Agriculture.) " in the domestic history of this 

 animal is the immense extent of its distribution, more especially in 

 far removed and insulated spots inhabited by semibarbarians, where 



