PREHISTOKIC TIMES IN BRITAIN. 553 



Calcutta— with the skulls of the wild pig* of Hindostan (8, cristatus) 

 shows that they differ from them in little else than their smaller 

 size. They may be spoken of, therefore, as S. cristatus^ var. 

 domesticus ; and they are as distinguishable from any variety of 

 S. scrofa^ var. domesticus^ or indeed of S. indicus, as is the wild 

 S. cristatus from other wild Suidae. 



It is noteworthy that one of the skulls belonged to a very old 

 sow. In these, as in the days when Juvenal spoke (Sat. vi. 160) 

 of another Eastern country as a place where 



* Vetus indulget senibus dementia porcis,* 



it is a rare thing for a domestic pig to be allowed among Western 

 nations to live long enough to wear down its third molars. Mr. 

 H. N. Moseley, however, informs me that domestic pigs are kept 

 in the Chinese Buddhist monasteries till they die of old age and 

 infirmities ; and of India, Meiners, in his ' Allgemeine kritische 

 Geschichte der Religionem,' 1806, Bd. i. p. 193, says, 'In Asien 

 war von jeher Hindostan, wie in Afrika, Egypten, der Thron des 

 Thierdienstes.' 



It is noteworthy, secondly, that with the worn-down molars of 

 this aged domesticated pig were correlated abscesses on both sides 

 of the lower jaw, much as might have been the case (see J. R. 

 Mummery, Esq., 'Trans. Odont. Soc' ii. 2, 1869, p. 72) in ill-fed 

 human beings with similarly worn-down teeth. 



Mr. Lockwood informs me that the young of the domestic pigs 

 of his district are striped like the young of wild pigs. 



The skull of a wild boar, from France, presented by the Marquis 

 de I'Aigle, shows that the posterior lobe of the third molar in the 

 lower jaw may attain the same proportions in S. scrofa^ yQ,v.ferus, 

 that it does in S. crhtatus. 



The skull of 8. scrofuy var. domesticus, procured for me by H. N. 

 Moseley, Esq., from the Lofoten Islands, two degrees within the 

 Arctic Circle, has the long, low, lacrymal characteristic of S. scrofa, 

 var. ferus, a fact of particular interest when coupled with the 

 information, also procured for me by him, to the effect that the 

 young domestic pigs of that region are occasionally born with 

 stripes, and with his observation that the old pigs have a very 

 wild-boar-like appearance. These facts should be borne in mind as 

 telling against the views propounded by M. Andre Sanson, in his 

 memoir ' Sur la pretendue transformation du Sanglier en Cochon 



