Quadrupeds. 7705 



in great numbers, are then pulled up and put into larger boats, which follow for the 

 purpose. Some of ihese swine the Saleltians sell to the Chinese traders who visit the 

 island ; and of the rest they preserve in general only the skins and fat. The latter, 

 after being melted, they sell to the Alaki Chinese; and it is used by the common 

 people instead of I)utter, as long as it is not rancid, and also used for burning in 

 lamps, instead of cocoa-nut oil." — Bint/tei/'s ' History of Quadrupeds.' I have some- 

 where read a similar account of the habits of Sus papueusis. Of the large Indian 

 hogs, I am now satisfied of the existence of three well-marked races or species, which 

 are quite as distinct from each other as are the various species of the Archipelago, 

 figured and described by Dr. S. Miiller and others. One is the proper Bengal boar, 

 found also in Kuiak, which is by fur the most powerful, as shown by the entire ske- 

 leton, and which has the longest and most formidable tusks of any, the lower com- 

 monly protrudiug from the socket from three to three and a half inches over the curve. 

 It is specially distinguished by the breadth of its occipital plane, which is two inches 

 to two inches and a quarter where narrowest ; and by the shortness of the tail, which 

 numbers only thirteen or fourteen vertebrse. This may be distinguished as S. bengal- 

 ensis, nobis. Another is the ordinary S. iudiuus, Grai/ (S. cristatus, Wagler), as 

 noticed by F^r. Gray, from the Madras Presidency ; it being found over the whole of 

 India, the highlands of Ceylon, and also in Arakan, but I cannot pronounce on its 

 diffusion further. It is likewise an inhabitant of Lower Bengal, as we have a stuffed 

 specimen of a particularly fine boar of this race that was speared near Cwlcutta. The 

 domestic pigs of India a|)pear to be mainly (if not wholly) derived from it. The entire 

 skeleton is conspicuously less robust than in the preceding, the tusks less developed, 

 the lower rarely pnijecting two inches and three- fourths from the socket; the occipital 

 plane, where narrowest, rarely exceeds one inch and five-eighths ; and the tail is con- 

 spicuously much longer, consisting of about twenty vertebra-. We have the skull of a 

 sow of this race which has the fully-developed tusks of the boar; of course a rare 

 anomaly. The third is the species with very elongated skull and narrow occipital 

 plane (where narrowest one inch only), inhabiting the lowlands of Ceylon, which I 

 have denominated S. zeylonensis, and which may also be S. affinis. Gray, from the 

 Nilgiris, mentioned in the ' List of the Osteological Specimens in the Colleciion of the 

 British Museum,' where S. indicus is cited from the Nepal hills and ' tarai,' and also 

 Malabar. I have no skull of an European wild boar for comparison, but, judging 

 from Blainville's figures, our S. indicus approximates it more nearly than S. bengal- 

 ensis or S. zeylonensis. In the new Russian territory of the Amur it appears that "of 

 cattle or horses few were seen, but many swine of a peculiar kind, and fowls." Wild 

 bogs are found at all elevations in the Himalaya, and generally over Asia ; those of 

 Indo-China, China, and the Malayan peninsula require to be carefully examined : 

 as many as three species are reported to inhabit the plain of Mesopotamia. Wood, 

 in his 'Journey to the Source of the Oxus,' remarks that, "descending the eastern 

 side of Jutias Darah, our march was rendered less fatiguing by following hog-tracks 

 in the snow. So numerous are these animals that they had trodden down the snow 

 as if a large flock of sheep had been driven over it," — E. Blyth. 



Bats in Aberdeenshire. — Close by one of the finest reaches of the river Dee, and 

 near the hazely brae where the youthful Byron roamed and gathered nuts, are the 

 church and the well of St. Peter. Much is to be met with in that neighbourhood, of 

 interest alike to the naturalist or archaeologist, the louiist or valetudinarian ; and not 



VOL. XIX. 3 G 



