OF PREHISTORIC TIMES IN BRITAIN. 259 



as " Hauptschweine " and " Kiirnnierer " respectively; the latter of which terms has an 

 equivalent in the word " Wreckling," applied in some parts of England to the super- 

 numerary pig in a litter, i. e. to the one which makes the litter exceed the number of avail- 

 able teats, and fares accordingly. Two or three of the commonly reported facts * as to the 

 pairing and period of reproduction of the wild swine account very sufficiently for these 

 great differences in their size. Though the males are monogamous, severe battles never- 

 theless take place hetween them for the possession, it is said, of the largest females ; the 

 smallest females consequently are left for the vanquished, which will usually be the 

 smallest males. Hence a great difference in the two sets of offspring woidd be reasonably 

 expected. But, further, it is known that the wild, like the tame t swine, will breed long 

 before the period of maturity ; and that the offspring of such unions, whether both of the 

 parents or only one be immature, are likely to be smaller in size as well as fewer in 

 number, needs no argument. 



Whilst no a priori probability can be gathered from any greater domesticability in 

 favour of the claims of either European, Asiatic, or African Sus to be the exclusive source 

 of our domestic pigs, and whilst mere size equally fails to differentiate these races, 

 the point of the relation between the length and the height respectively of the lacrymal 

 bone on which Natkusius has laid such weight (Schweineschadel, passim et pp. 9, 10, 83, 

 91, 92, 175), and to which Mr. Darwin has assigned so much importance (' Animals and 

 Plants under Domestication,' vol. i. p. 70, ed. 1875), though in the immense majority of 

 cases enabling us at once to differentiate the skulls of Sus cristatus, as indeed of the other 

 Asiatic pigs without facial warts, from those of Sus scrofa, var. ferns, also sometimes fails 

 us. Having measured a very considerable number of skulls of Sas cristatus from very 

 various parts of India, and having invariably found them to have the orbital border of 

 the lacrymal shorter than, or at most only just equal in length to the malar, and bearing 

 in mind the constant reference made by Nathusius to the morphological and classificatory 

 value of this proportional difference in the tame variety, the so-called Sus indicus, I t* as 

 entirely unable to understand how that author could say (I. c. p. 185) that two skulls of 

 Sus cristatus furnished to him by Mr. E. Gerrard differed from skulls of Sus scrofa, var. 

 ferus, only in being smaller altogether. But after measuring the skulls from Sir Walter 

 Elliot's collection and those in the British Museum, with the result of feeling certain 

 that, from the contour, proportions, and, in adult males, the texture and sculpturing, 

 together with the lacrymal of Sus cristatus, it was always possible to distinguish such 

 skulls from those of our Wild Boar, I came, in the Royal College of Surgeons, upon a 

 skull which, whilst possessing certain other peculiarities (to be hereafter detailed) as 

 distinctive, more or less, of Sus cristatus, did combine with them the long lacrymal of 

 Sus scrofa, var. ferns. This skull is numbered 3251 a, and was pointed out to me by 

 Professor Elower, with his often experienced kindness, as being a skull of Sus cristatus, 



* See Richardson, ' Domestic Pigs,' pp. 18, 19 (Warne, London) ; Samuel Sidney, ' The Pig,' p. 4 (Routledge, 

 London) ; Blasius, ' Siiugethiere,' p. 509, 1857 ; Wagner, ' Siiugethiere,' p. 426, 1835 ; Brandt & Ratzeburg, ' Medi- 

 cinische Zoologie,' p. 88, 1829. 



f For period at ■which, tame sows will breed, see Sidney I. c. p. 61 ; Low, ' On the Domesticated Animals of the 

 British Islands,' p. 415. 



SECOND SERIES. — ZOOLOGY, VOL. I. 2 H 



