256 PROF. ROLLESTON ON THE DOMESTIC PIG 



The Asiatic pigs, secondly, of the group represented by Sus cristatus, though not, within 

 my knowledge, those known as Sus verrucosus, nor those known as Sus barbatus, have very 

 similar and very numerous testimonies borne to their educability and capacity for attach- 

 ment to man. Eitzinger, indeed, says of the domesticated Chinese Pig, his " Sus leuco- 

 mystax sinensis" that it resembles the domesticated European Pig generally in its habits 

 and character, but that it shows much more attachment than the European farm-pig to 

 the persons who take care of it, and will even follow them about, although it is other- 

 wise troublesome and obstinate. (Sitzungsberichte d. Akad. Wiss. Wien, 1858, Bd. xxx. 

 p. 235). In Formosa, when the Dutch first became acquainted with it, in the beginning 

 of the 17th century, every native woman, we are informed, on the authority of Ogilby 

 (Atlas Chinensis, ii. p. 8, cit. by Swinhoe Proc. Zool. 1870, p. 643), had " a great pig 

 running after her, as we use to have a dog." A closer intimacy than this has been 

 observed to exist between Homo sapiens asiaticus, Linn., and Sus sinensis, Linn., by Pro- 

 fessor Huxley (cit. Galton, Trans. Ethnol. Soc. vol. iii. 1865, p. 127), who has seen 

 sucking-pigs nursed at the breasts of women, apparently as pets, in islands of the New- 

 Guinea group. As regards the wild races, Sir Walter Elliot tells me, in a letter of date 

 May 15, 1876, — " I have seen the young of Sus cristatus, which had been captured by 

 some of the Indian nomad communities, and reared by them, running about among the 

 domestic stock ; so that it would be hard to say where the line should be drawn" *. The 

 wild Sm papuensis has been found by Europeans, as we are informed by M. R. P. Lesson 

 (Voyage de la Coquille, 1826, vol. i. p. 176), to be more thoroughly domesticable than the 

 half-wild state in which some of the natives are content to leave it would have led us to 

 expect, and to set up relations of mutual amity, not only with the human, but also 

 with canine companions. 



As regards the ^Ethiopian region, the Wild Hog is reported to us by Dr. Barth t as 

 consorting on terms of perfect amity, and, indeed, intimacy, with other domesticated 

 animals than the dog, and also with the natives. These are his words relating to a 

 district in Central Africa : — " Naked young lads were splashing and playing about in 

 the water together with wild hogs in the greatest harmony ; never in any part of 

 Neoroland have I seen this animal in such numbers as here about the Shari. Calves 

 and goats were pasturing in the fields with wild hogs in the midst of them." 



It is impossible to be perfectly certain what wild hog this may have been ; still it can 

 scarcely have been any other than Sm sennaariensis, which has been supposed (see Darwin, 

 ' Domestication,' i. p. 71, 2nd ed.) by J. W. Schutz to have been the parent stock of 

 Sus scrofa, var. palustris, of Riitimeyer, but underneath the entry of which, in the 

 British-Museum Catalogue of 1869, p. 338, I find the following note :— " Dr. Murie 

 says he has often seen and eaten the true Wild Boar of the genus Sm in Africa, as 

 well as the Potamochcerus, on the west coast. I have never seen any, or the skull 

 of one." Like Dr. Gray, I have had no quite satisfactory opportunities for forming an 



* It would appoar that this difficulty has been felt by others to be a very real one. Colonel Walter Campbell 

 tells us, at p. 325 of his ' Indian Journal,' 1864, that he fears " the young gentlemen of the present day have taken 

 to spearing village pigs instead of wild boars," and that he has " seen the thing done before now." 



f Referred to by Nathusius, p. 147, I. c. ; or see his ' Travels in Central Africa ', vol. iii. p. 311, 1857. 



