544) ON THE DOMESTIC PIG OF 



Asia, and, on the other, of the aptness for domestication possessed 

 by Sus scrgfa, \ai\ ferns, it appears to me to be unsafe to postulate 

 for prehistoric British swine any other parent stock than the one 

 just named. On the other hand, such is the diffusibility and 

 transportability of Sus that it is not impossible, nor inconceivable, 

 that the domestic European pig*, even of the Stone Age, may have 

 had an Asiatic or African origin. As regards the Bronze Age, 

 indeed, if its tin and copper did really come from the East, such a 

 view cannot be said to be even improbable. But the acceptance of 

 it does not seem to me to be necessitated by the facts. 



Measurements of the Orbital and Malar Borders of the 

 Lacrymal Bone^. 



I. Sus cristatus and its allies. 



Skull of Indian wild boar, Sas cristatus, No. 72 in Sir Walter Elliot's collection. 

 Killed about 1830, at Haugul, S. W. corner of Dharwar province, in South Mahratta 

 country. 



Height of lacrymal i in. ; malar border i in. 



Skull of Indian wild boar, Sus cristatus, No. 46, Sir Walter Elliot's collection. 



* To this paper I append a number of measurements, taken from various Suidae, of 

 the length and height of the lacrymal bone, this point having had great weight laid 

 upon it by Nathusius, and holding good within very considerable limits. I have not 

 given any measurements relating to the widening of the palate (a second point insisted 

 upon by Nathusius), because, as regards the wild races, I have found that this widening 

 of the interpremolar, as opposed to the intermolar transverse diameter of the palate, is 

 sometimes found in specimens which undoubtedly belong to wild European boars, 

 whilst, on the other hand, the two measurements are usually subequal in the other 

 wild races, such as Sus cristatus, which I have measured. In taking the length of 

 the lacrymal along its malar border, some little ambiguity is caused by the fact that 

 in many specimens the lip of the orbit is a little everted, so as to resemble to some 

 extent the spout of a mortar rather than the rim of a cup at the line of junction of the 

 malar with the orbital border of the lacrymal. Where the differences between the 

 heights and lengths are measured by tenths or twentieths of an inch or by milli- 

 metres, this structural arrangement may make the measurements vary importantly. 

 There is, however, always a line separating the part of the lacrymal which is to be 

 considered as belonging to the inner aspect of the orbit from that which is strictly 

 facial ; and from this line the measurements have been taken. The frontal border of 

 the lacrymal, again, often bends downwards just before reaching its orbital edge, just 

 posteriorly to the plane of the lacrymal canals, thereby curtailing the height of the 

 bone for the distance corresponding with this deflection. My measurements have 

 been taken in the plane occupied by the lacrymal canals, so as to avoid this source of 

 fallacy. 



