528 ON THE DOMESTIC PIG OF 



resemble Sms cristatus in having a large lacrymo-frontal ridge, is, 

 of course, specifically distinct from it. Sus sennaariemis^ if, as I 

 think is most likely^ closely allied to Sus cristatus, is another in- 

 stance of the wide distribution of ' Pachyderms,' a point on which 

 Riitimeyer insists, in a different tone ('Herkunft unserer Thierwelt,' 

 p. 34) from that adopted by Gibbon, but not less categorically, nor, 

 indeed, less strikingly, remarking, as he does, that at the present 

 day the Hi/rax and the Hippopotamus are the only genera of 'Pachy- 

 derms ' confined to one quarter of the globe. 



The Aethiopian region therefore must be held to possess a true 

 Sus ; and as to domesticability, the Palaearctic, the Oriental, and 

 the Aethiopian Suidae have possibly equal claims^. 



^ Pigs fulfil excellently well tlie six conditions enumerated by Mr. Francis Galton, 

 I.e., as necessary for domestication: viz. 1. That the animal should be hardy; 

 2. That it should have an inborn liking for man ; 3. That it should be comfort- 

 loving ; 4. That it should be found useful ; 5. That it should breed freely ; 6. That 

 it should be gregarious. Aesop, Aelian, and Lactantius {cit. by Bochart, ' Hiero- 

 zoicon,' ii. 698) have, in various ways, remarked on the peculiaiity of the pig as 

 contrasted with other domestic animals, in that it is useful only when dead, giving 

 neither milk, as does the cow, nor wool as does the sheep. With this peculiarity is 

 connected the fact, useful for the often difficult task of deciding whether a particular 

 skull came from a wild or a domestic breed, that domestic pigs are usually made 

 useful while young. Riitimeyer, indeed {I. c. p. 52), gives it as one of his reasons 

 for supposing Sus scrofa, var. palastris, to be represented by a wild as well as by a 

 tame stock, that its remains are usually those either of very old or quite young indi- 

 viduals. A pig will father while quite young ; and whilst gaining nothing in its 

 capacity of manufacturer of food in its own body, it loses in its capacity of a breeding 

 animal with increase of age. This is not the case with the cow ; and the discovery, 

 therefore, of remains of very old individuals of this species only justifies us in inferring 

 that the cow was a scarce and valuable animal in the period and place to which it 

 belonged. See Rtitimeyer, ' Fauna der Pfahlbauten,' p. 10. 



The special value of the pig as a domesticated animal is commonly expressed in an 

 estimate that 'twice the weight of food may be obtained from hogs than can be 

 obtained from the same cost of food by means of any other animals ' (Kichardson, 

 I.e. p. 42). In a little more detail, it is to be remarked that the pig, as a meat 

 producer, stands at an advantage (to the consumer), first, in the smaller relative 

 weight of its ' offal ' as compared with the entire weight of its body, but secondly, and 

 chiefly, in the large proportion of fat, the kind of food which is eminently the hardest 

 for a savage or for the poor to procure, which it will store up upon almost any dietary. 

 For this, see Lawes and Gilbert's invaluable Paper in the Royal Society's Transactions 

 for 1859, ' ^^ ^^® Composition of some of the Animals fed and slaughtered as Human 

 Food,' page 565 for relative proportion of offal, pages 513 and 543 for storing up of 

 fat. It may be here remarked that De Blainville (' Ost^ographie, G. Sus,' Intro- 

 duction, p. 107) may very likely be right in suggesting that the pig may have 

 furnished animal food to the earliest races of man before either cow or sheep, but that 

 he could not have had our knowledge of the very various kinds of animals which, 

 even in these days, furnish lower races of men with animal food, when he supposes 



