OF PREHISTORIC TIMES IN BRITAIN. 269 



of Prehistoric to modern races are those of the great variations observed — first, in the 

 entire size of the individual animals, and, secondly, in the proportions of particular bones, 

 and notably of the lacrymal bones, in specimens from the same species or subspecies of 

 SuiclcB. In view on the one side of this twofold variability which is explicable upon 

 acknowledged physiological principles, and affects the wild races both of Europe and 

 Asia, and, on the other, of the aptness for domestication possessed by Sus scrofa, var. 

 ferus, it appears to me to be unsafe to postulate for Prehistoric British Swine any other 

 parent stock than the one just named. On the other hand, such is the diffusibility and 

 transportability of Sus that it is not impossible, nor inconceivable, that the domestic 

 European Pig, even of the Stone Age, may have had an Asiatic or African origin. As 

 regards the Bronze Age, indeed, if its tin and copper did really come from the East, such 

 a view cannot be said to be even improbable. But the acceptance of it does not seem to 

 me to be necessitated by the facts. 



Measurements of the Orbital and Malar Borders of the Lacrymal Bone*. 

 I. Sus cristatus and its allies. 



Skull of Indian Wild Boar, Sus cristatus, no. 72. Sir "Walter Elliot's collection. Killed about 1830, 

 at Haugul, S.W. corner of Dharwar province, in South Mahratta country. 



Height of lacrymal 1 in. ; malar border 1 in. 



Skull of Indian Wild Boar, Sus cristatus, no. 46. Sir Walter Elliot's collection, shot at Dendelly 

 12th April, 1831, in the great forest tract between Dharwar and Goa. 



Height of lacrymal 1 in. ; malar border 1 in. 



Skull of large Indian Boar, Sus cristatus, killed near Rajkote, in Kattywar, June 4, 1832. He was 

 with a large " sounder/' and ripped two horses severely. No. 71 in Sir Walter Elliot's collection. 



Height of lacrymal TO in. ; malar border - 8 in. 



Skull of Indian Wild Boar, Sus cristatus, no. 428 in Sir Walter Elliot's collection. From Jaggia- 

 pettah, on the east side of the Madras Presidency, in the Masulipatam district, on the high road from 

 Masulipatam to Hyderabad. An old male with some obliteration of sutures. 



Height of lacrymal 0'95 in. ; malar border 0"95 in. 



* To this paper I append a number of measurements, taken from various Suiclw, of the length and height of the 

 lacrymal hone, this point having had great weight laid upon it by Nathusius, and holding good within very con- 

 siderable limits. I have not given any measurements relating to the widening of the palate (a second point insisted 

 upon by jSTathusius), because, as regards the wild races, I have found that this widening of the interpremolar, as 

 opposed to the intermolar transverse diameter of the palate, is sometimes found in specimens which undoubtedly 

 belong to wild European boars, whilst, on the other hand, the two measurements are usually subequal in the other 

 wild races, such as Sus cristatus, which I have measured. In taking the length of the lacrymal along its malar 

 border, some little ambiguity is caused by the fact that in many specimens the lip of the orbit is a little everted, so 

 as to resemble to some extent the spout of a mortar rather than the rim of a cup at the line of junction of the malar 

 with the orbital border of the lacrymal. Where the differences between the heights and lengths are measured by 

 tenths or twentieths of an inch or by millimetres, this structural arrangement may make the measurements vary 

 importantly. There is, however, always a line separating the part of the lacrymal which is to be considered as 

 belonging to the inner aspect of the orbit from that which is strictly facial ; and from this line the measurements have 

 been taken. The frontal border of the lacrymal, again, often bends downwards just before reaching its orbital edge, 

 just posteriorly to the plane of the lacrymal canals, thereby curtailing the height of the bone for the distance corre- 

 sponding with this deflection. My measurements have been taken in the plane occupied by the lacrymal canals, so 

 as to avoid this source of fallacy. 



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