REVERSION TO WILD STATE IN DOMESTIC ANIMALS. 127 



were snow-white, some were parti-coloured, and one appeared to 

 be black. Their natural capacity for climbing has no doubt 

 been improved by their reversion to the wild state. They are 

 very wild and cautious, and difficult of approach by the hunter. 

 They, too, are hunted for their skins. 



The most marked and rapid change is produced in the Hog 

 by his emancipation from the restraints of domestication and 

 the care of man. In a single generation he changes in form, 

 colour, and habit from the staid and quiet porker to the fleet 

 and fierce Wild Boar. The latter is the character as described 

 to me by all who had been interested to make observations on 

 the subject, of the numerous Wild Hogs now roaming in those 

 islands. Colonel Charles Judd assured me that, many years 

 before, a lot of Hogs escaped from his ranch on the easterly 

 side of Ouahu, and went into the mountain which bordered the 

 ranch. Among them was an imported Boar. Before he could 

 find them they had become so wild that he could not reclaim 

 them from their mountain fastnesses. He got sight of this Boar 

 many times during several succeeding years. He was so marked 

 that he could readily identify him. The change in form and 

 habit were almost immediate. He soon became wild and almost 

 as fleet as a deer. His body became thin, his back arched, and 

 his legs appeared to be much longer than when he escaped. 

 Much slower was the change of colour, but this finally occurred 

 to a very appreciable extent, so that in a few years he had 

 distinctly assumed the dark sandy shade of the Wild Boar. He 

 wisely forbore to shoot him that he might study the develop- 

 ments which he saw going on. In the third or fourth generation 

 the pigs showed very distinctly the sandy shade and stripes 

 observed on the side of the young of the Wild Boar. From 

 these and similar observations, I should infer that it would not 

 take very many generations, with proper care, to completely 

 domesticate the Wild Boar. 



I heard of but two places where the Pea-fowl had gone wild. 

 The first was at the plantation of Colonel Judd, before men- 

 tioned, and the other was the plantation of Captain M'Kee, on 

 the island of Maui, whence the birds had escaped, and gone into 

 the mountains above. No change was observed, except that they 

 had become wild, but not excessively so, and I did not learn that 

 they had been much hunted in either case. 



