42 A NATURALIST IN BORNEO 



of the river towns and Government stations. In many 

 books it is stated that 'R. sondaicm also occurs in 

 Borneo, but I do not know what authority there is 

 for this statement. 



Three species of Wild Boar are now distinguished 

 from Borneo ; the commonest is Sus barbahis, and so 

 far as I know the habits of all the species are very 

 similar. The gregarious instinct of the Wild Boar is 

 well marked. At times great droves of them pass 

 from one part of the country to another ; hundreds 

 may be seen for a day or two trotting through the 

 jungle, and when they come to a river they plunge 

 into it without hesitation and swim across to the 

 other side. 1 The non-Islamic tribes of Borneo hail 

 with joy these migrations, and slaughter the beasts 

 wholesale. Driving them on to some point of land 

 projecting into the river, the hunters spear or shoot 

 the Boars as they emerge from the jungle and plunge 

 into the water. The cause of these migrations is 

 obscure ; perhaps they are due to a failure of food- 

 supply in certain tracts of the country, but it has 

 also been suggested that an outbreak of swine-fever 

 or some allied epidemic drives the animals to seek in 

 haste some non-infected area. That wild swine are 



1 It has been asserted, though with how much truth I cannot 

 say, that the domestic pig, when forced to take to the water, cuts 

 its throat in the act of swimming, the hoofs of the fore-legs slashing 

 the fat jowl until some large blood-vessel is severed. If this be 

 true of the domestic pig, it is certainly not true of the wild species, 

 for they swim admirably. R. S. 



The statement is certainly not true of the domestic pig, as I 

 know from experience. The mistake was corrected by A. R. 

 Wallace in Geographical Distribution of Animals, 1876, vol. I., p. 13. 

 H. N. R. 



