12 A MANUAL ON THE HOG. 



The original type of the wild hog has gradually disap- 

 peared before the advance of civilization, and the encroach- 

 ments of agriculture upon his wild haunts, but he may still 

 be found in the thinly settled portions of Europe, in India 

 and in Africa. 



Those found in large swamps of the southern United 

 States, in Central and South America, differ materially 

 from the original wild hog ; the form erhaving grown wild 

 after domestication, as the result of neglect, retain the 

 marks of its influence. They have smaller tusks, and less 

 bristles, than the original wild hog of the Eastern Hemis- 

 phere ; neither are they so ferocious as their original pro- 

 genitors. 



THE DOMESTIC HOG. 



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

 Wilson, (Quarterly Journal of Agriculture^) "in the domes- 

 tic history of this animal is the immense extent of its dis- 

 tribution, more especially in far removed and insulated 

 spots inhabited by semi-barbarians, where 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 tradition- 

 ary belief of the people, in regard to the original intro- 

 duction 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."* 



" In Greece and the neighboring islands, swine were 

 common at an early period, and were kept in large droves 

 by swine herds, for we read in Homer's Odyssey, which 

 is supposed to have been written upwards of 900 years B. 

 C., that Ulysses, on his return from the Trojan war, first 



*Youatt and Martin, page 18. 



