PREHISTORIC FAUNA. 341 



exceedingly variable points. The condition of neglect and comparative 

 freedom in which the still surviving Scotch breed is described as living 

 has no doubt been constant since the earliest times; and we may, 

 after making some allowances, fairly suppose that it must have pro- 

 duced the same changes in the soft and perishable parts, and so in the 

 entire appearance of the swine of those days, that we can see it has 

 done in those subjected to it now. The bones of the domesticated 

 prehistoric pig, it is almost needless to say, are the bones of small 

 animals; nor does the early age at which the great majority of 

 domestic swine were then as now slaughtered entirely explain this fact 

 away. 



As regards the sheep, Ovis aries, I have to say, firstly, that I think 

 the caution with which any identification of any ovine or caprine bone 

 from a prehistoric ' find ' is usually recorded, should be so worded, or 

 at least received, as to make us think it is at least as likely to be a 

 sheep's bone as a goat's. The reverse is ordinarily taken as being im- 

 plied. But anybody who will study the coloured drawing given by Low 

 (* Hist. Nat. An. Dom. de l'Europe/ pis. i, ii, French ed.) as referred to 



breeds, under the selective action of certain foods, viz. the paint-root, Lachnanthes 

 tinctoria, and buckwheat, Polygonum fagopyrum (see Wyman, Spinola, and Heusinger, 

 citt. Darwin, * Origin of Species,' sixth edition, p. 9 ; 'Domestication,' second edition, 

 ii. p. 332). The ' Roman' pig is now, as figured in Low, 1. c, of a deep black colour 

 almost universally j but in classical times it was not so any more than the domestic 

 Greek pig was of which Aristotle tells us (H. A. ii. 2. 14) the wild boar differed from 

 it in being black. It is true that the sow of iEneid iii. 392 and viii. 45, 'Alba solo re- 

 cubans, albi circum ubera nati,' is spoken of (viii. 81) as 'subitum atque oculis mira- 

 bile monstrum ; ' but Servius in loco, who from his date, a.d. 400, must have been 

 familiar enough with 'Roman' pigs, explains the word 'mon strum' thus, 'quia et 

 subito et cum triginta porcellis est visa,' which is quite an adequate explanation. 

 Columella also contrasts (vi. 9) a ' grex nigrae setae quam durissimae densaeque * with 

 a ■ glabrum pecus vel etiam pistrinale album ' as being better suited for a ' regio fri- 

 gida et pruinosa.' Hence, though there is no doubt that one of the earliest effects of 

 domestication upon the wild-boar stock not uncommonly is to make the colour white 

 or at least what Youatt calls 'dirty white' or 'yellowish brown,' there is also no 

 doubt that the reverse of this may be effected by the same process in later stages or 

 through the introduction of new disturbing influences. I incline to think that, though 

 the reverse must have been the case with several of our common domestic animals, 

 immigrating races of men have usually provided themselves with tame pigs by having 

 recourse to the young of the wild-boar stock available on the area which they have 

 occupied. For whilst wild swine everywhere lend themselves readily to domestica- 

 tion, it must in early times have been very difficult to transport or import even already 

 domesticated pigs. The contrast in this latter point between the pig and the two 

 animals, which most certainly of all must have been imported into Europe as domes- 

 ticated, did not escape the notice of the ancient fabulist who, as referred to by 

 Bochart, ' Hierozoicon,' ii. 5 7,. p. 698, spoke of the 'porcus, qui cum agno et capra ad 

 urbem deferebatur et quum illi pacate degerent solus se distorquebat.' 



