Miscellaneous, 155 



While I agree with Dr. Fitzinger that the name of " Japanese," as 

 applied to this Pig, is in all probability a misnomer, I believe he is 

 quite mistaken in supposing that it has anything to do with Abys- 

 sinia, for the following reasons : — 



1. As far as I have been able to ascertain, the first examples of 

 this beast which reached Europe were those received, in 1860, by 

 the Zoological Society of Antwerp. Mr. Jacques Vekemans, the 

 Director of that establishment, informs me that he purchased a pair 

 and three young of this Pig out of an English vessel, which arrived 

 in the port of Antwerp on the 10th of February of that year. The 

 vessel, as Mr. Vekemans believes, came from Shanghai; but the captain 

 stated that he had bought the Pigs in Japan, which was probably 

 the origin of their being called " Japanese Pigs." 



Mr. Jamrach, the well-known dealer in living animals, who has 

 had many of these Pigs through his hands, informs me that he 

 believes China, and not Japan, is their true home, several cases 

 having occurred, to his own knowledge, in which they have been im- 

 ported in vessels coming direct from the former country. 



2. The ^^ Hassana^* of the Abyssinians, recently described by 

 Dr. Th. vou Heuglin in the last-published volume of the Acta 

 Academiee Leopoldino-Carolinse*, under the new generic and specific 

 names Nyctichoerus Hassana, has evidently nothing to do with the 

 so-called Japanese Pig, but, so far as I can judge from his imperfect 

 description, is probably a species of Potamochoerus, a genus which, 

 as I have shown f, differs from Sus in the entire absence of the fourth 

 premolar from each jaw. 



I think, therefore, we may safely conclude that the true home of 

 the so-called Japanese Pig is China, where, as we know, such mon- 

 strous varieties of domestic species are much appreciated. But, for my 

 own part, I cannot see the slightest reason for regarding the " Japa- 

 nese " Pig as anything more than a domesticated variety. The 

 differences in the skull, noted by Dr. Gray (P. Z. S. 1862, p. 13), are 

 no doubt considerable ; but they are not greater than in the case 

 of the Polish Fowl, with its abnormal development of the summit of 

 the cranium, or the Pampas Cow J, with its stunted nasals. These 

 cases must, in my opinion, be all referred to the same category of 

 exaggerated variation produced by lengthened domestication. 



On the Flight of Birds and Insects. By E. Liais. 



In the flight of birds and insects, there are three cases to be taken 

 into consideration: — 1, flight without locomotion; 2, flight with 

 locomotion and beating of the wings ; 3, flight without beating of 

 the wings, or gliding flight. This third mode presupposes a previous 

 locomotion, produced by beating of the wings. The ascensional 

 force is then obtained at the expense of the active force of the move- 

 ment of progression, by an effect of the inclination of the wings. 



* Vol. XXX. (1864) Beitrage zur Zoologie Afrika's. 



t P.Z.S. 1860, p. 301. 



i Cf. Cat. Ost. Ser. Mus. R. Coll. of Surgeons, ii. p. 624. no. 3832. 



