OF PREHISTORIC TIMES IN BRITAIN. 277 



"by the pariah castes of his district, fe'ed on human ordure, and are sold out of the district 

 to the Chinamen at Calcutta, with the skulls of the wild Pig of Hindostan (S. cristatus) 

 shows that they differ from them in little else than their smaller size. They may he 

 spoken of, therefore, as &'. cristatus, var. domesticus ; and they are as distinguishable 

 from any variety of S. scrofa, var. domesticus, or indeed of 8. indicus, as is the wild S. 

 cristatus from other wild Suidse. 



It is noteworthy that one of the skulls belonged to a very old sow. In these, as in the 

 days when Juvenal spoke (Sat. vi. 160), of another eastern country as a place where 



" Vetus indulget senibus dementia porcis," 

 it is a rare thing for a domestic Pig to be allowed among western nations to live long 

 enough to wear down its third molars. Mr. H. N. Moseley, however, informs me that 

 domestic Pigs are kept in the Chinese Buddhist monasteries till they die of old age and 

 infirmities ; and of India, Meiners, in his ' Allgemeine kritische Geschichte der Re- 

 ligionen,' 1806, Bd. i. p. 193, says, " In Asien war von jeher Hindostan, wie in Afrika, 

 Egypten, der Thron des Thierdienstes." 



It is noteworthy, secondly, that with the worn-down molars of this aged domesticated 

 Pig were correlated abscesses on both sides of the lower jaw, much as might have been 

 the case (see J. B-. Mummery, Esq., Trans. Odont. Soc. ii. 2, 1869, p. 72) in ill-fed human 

 "beings with similarly worn-down teeth. 



Mr. Lockwood informs me that the young of the domestic Pigs of his district are 

 striped like the young of wild Pigs. 



The skull of a wild boar, from Erance, presented by the Marquis de l'Aigle, shows that 

 the posterior lobe of the third molar in the lower jaw may attain the same proportions 

 in S. scrofa, var. ferus, that it does in S. cristatus. 



The skull of S. scrofa, var. domesticus, procured for me by H. N. Moseley, Esq., from 

 the Lofoten Islands, two degrees within the Arctic circle, has the long, low, lacrymal 

 characteristic of S. scrofa, var. ferus, a fact of particular interest when coupled with the 

 information, also procured for me by him, to the effect that the young domestic pigs of 

 that region are occasionally born with stripes, and with his observation that the old pigs 

 have a very wild-boar-like appearance. These facts should be borne in mind as telling 

 against the views propounded by M. Andre Sanson, in his memoir " Sur la pretendue 

 transformation clu Sanglier en Cochon domestique," in the 'Journal de l'Anatomie et de 

 la Physiologie,' torn. iv. 1867, p. 38. 



In Professor Hartmann's memoir above referred to, it is stated (p. 350) that certain 

 Negro tribes, who disobey Mahommedan precepts by eating as well as domesticating S. 

 sennaariensis, excuse themselves by saying it was formerly the custom to do so, a fact which 

 goes some little way to disprove the view that this true Sus can be merely a feral variety 

 of S. scrofa, imported by Europeans. Professor Hartmann, in a letter of date -Sept. 28, 

 1876, says, " Sus sennaariensis ist ein kleines dem europaischen Torfschwein (der Pfahl- 

 bauten) ahnliches Schwein, echtes Sus, welches wild durch einen grossen Theil von 

 Mittel- Afrika vorzukommen scheint . . . Sus scrofa ferns in der Sahara und in iEgypten 

 nicht selten, findet sich angeblich ebenfalls in Sennaar, indess weiss ich hieruber nichts 



vollig Sicheres." 



2o2 



