WART-HOGS 



109 



conical warts below the eyes and smaller ones between the latter and the tusks. 

 The tusks themselves, which are tipped with enamel only in youth, curve both 

 upwards and inwards, the upper ones frequently measuring as much as 13 inches, 

 although they may be double that length. Unlike those of ordinary wild swine, 

 the upper tusks much exceed the lower pair in length, the latter biting against the 

 lower surface of the former so as not to blunt their points. The upper incisor 

 teeth are reduced to a single pair, but in young animals there are three pairs 

 of lower ones. Old wart-hogs have, however, frequently only the tusks and 

 a single pair of cheek-teeth in each jaw, which are the last of the series, all 

 those in advance, as well as the incisors, being gradually shed. The structure 

 of the very large pair of persistent cheek-teeth, or molars, is very remarkable, 

 although it is really only an exaggeration of the type obtaining in ordinary 

 swine. Typically the wart-hog (Phacochosrus aithiopicus) is a native of 



WART-HOG. 



Africa south of the Zambesi; north of that river it is replaced by several local 

 races, whose range embraces West, Central, and East Africa, extending into 

 Abyssinia, where the species is represented by P. ce. africanus. The northern and 

 southern races differ in regard to the form of the head, and also by a tendency 

 to a rufous tinge in the sparse hair of the southern form. The black hides of old 

 animals are nearly bare. Young wart-hogs are not striped, in this respect differing 

 from those of most other wild swine. 



Wart-hogs have much the same general habits as other swine, lurking during 

 the day in thickets and ravines, whence they issue at evening into the open to feed, 

 although even then they prefer to remain in the neighbourhood of covert. 



As a rule, these animals associate in herds of from eight to ten head, consisting 

 of the females and young males, the old males living alone. In Abyssinia they 

 use their tusks for the purpose of digging up roots, of which they are very fond, 

 and also for digging holes in the earth, intended probably for the young. These 



