268 PROF. ROLLESTON ON THE DOMESTIC PIG 



over Borneo with Sus barbatus, and, as stated, also over Amboyna, Macassar, Banka, and 

 Sumatra, gives it special claims to attention. This Pig appears to me to be very closely 

 allied indeed to Sus cristatus, and to be similarly and readily distinguishable from our 

 European "Wild Boar. In this latter point I differ from Biitimeyer (I. c. p. 187), whilst I 

 should agree with him in considering it all but identical with Sus leucomystax. The 

 claims of Sus vittatus and Sus leucomystax, and Sus taivanus of Formosa (occurring, as 

 they do, in an area comprising Japan as well as Java), to have given origin to Sus 

 indicus, the domestic Chinese pig, in days sufficiently far off to have allowed the tendency 

 to striping of the young to become eliminated, are very strong, and can scarcely be 

 considered antagonistic. 



Closely allied as Sus cristatus is to these races, its severe struggle for existence entailed 

 by its habitat on a continental area tenanted by the tiger (Felis tigris), as well as other 

 Carnivora unfriendly to Suidae, appears to me to have specialized it, especially as regards 

 its dental armature and the bones which carry it, into divergence from the probable line 

 of parentage of the inconveniently so-called Sus indicus. Sus andamanensis, on the 

 other hand, and, I am inclined to think, one or two other of the Asiatic Suidce, show, from 

 a precisely opposite cause, that of restriction to a very confined area, the same divergence 

 from what I have imagined the present stock of the Chinese breed may have been. 

 But against any such speculations about what we do not see in the darkness of past 

 ages we have to set what we can see by travel in the broad daylight of the present, viz. 

 that almost all Suidce are readily domesticable by savages in almost every quarter of the 

 globe ; and what savages do now they may very well have done formerly. 



I have not been able to institute any satisfactory examination into the relations of the 

 JEthiopic to the Asiatic Suidce ; and I should welcome an opportunity of examining skulls 

 and skins of the true Sus seen by Dr. Murie and Dr. Barth in Central Africa. It would 

 be additionally satisfactory if investigations could be set on foot as to the existence or 

 non-existence in this Sus of the Cystic form of Taenia solium, which certainly exists in 

 Sus cristatus. Dr. Cobbold informs me that Tcenia mediocannellata is the common tape- 

 worm of Indian as of other patients ; but I apprehend that, as it has been so very definitely 

 laid down by others f that the Pig is at least one source whence inhabitants and sojourners 

 in India become infested with tapeworm, it would be premature to conclude the reverse 

 even from his authoritative statements. It must be very difficult to prove a negative here. 



The facts of most direct importance, however, in investigations as to the relationships 



following words from M. Gabriel de Mortillet's memoir in the ' Revue d' Anthropologic,' iv. 4, 1875, p. 653, as to 

 the origin of bronze : — " Reste le groupe de l'extreme Orient Asiatique. C'est la evidemment ou. il faut chercher 

 l'origine du bronze. Les prinoipaux gisements sont dans la presqu'ile de Malacca et surtout dans Pile de Banca, 

 mais ils s'etendcnt dans d'autres iles de la Sonde et remontent jusque dans l'empire Birman ou l'etain est encore 

 exploite actuellement dans le district de Merguy. Ce mineral, dans tous ces gisements se recueille de la maniere la 

 plus simple et la plus facile dans les alluvions. Ce sont bien eertamement les alluvions les plus riches du monde en 

 etain et celles qui occupent la plus grande etendue. 11 est done tout naturel que ce soit celles qui les premieres 

 aient attire l'attention de l'homme. Le cuivre se rencontre dans les memes regions. Tout le monde connait les 

 gisements de cuivre des iles de la Sonde, Timor, Macassar, Borneo. La Birmanie anglaise presente des mines de 

 cuivre a cote des ses exploitations d'etain. Le pays se trouve done dans les meilleurcs conditions pour avoir vu 

 naitre l'industrie du bronze." Gallus banlciva, the parent stock of our Common Fowl, is found over the same area. 



t Notably by Dr. Charles A. Gordon, Medical Times and Gazette, May 2, 1857, p. 429 ; and by Dr. T. R. Lewis, 

 Appendix B. to Eighth Annual Report of the Sanitary Commissioner with the Government of India, 1871. 



