MAMMALS OF THE MEXICAN BOUNDARY. 159 



Family TAYASSUIDJ5.'" 



FECGAKIEB. 



Snout as iu Suidse. Dentition: if, e|, 2J|, wtf ; total .38. Incisors 

 rooted ; upper canines directed downward, with sharp cutting hinder 

 edges. Toes, four on the fore feet and three on the hind feet (the 

 fifth wanting). Stomach complex. A caecum. Confined to the New 

 World.'' {Flower and Lydekher.) 



Genus TAYASSU Fischer (1814). « 



Tayassu Pischee, Zoqgnosia, III, 1814, p. 284. Type. — Tayassu pecari 



Fischer=/Si»A' alHrostris lUiger.. 

 Dicotyles G. Cuvier, Regne Animal, I, 1817, p. 2S7=Tavassu Fisher. 

 Notophorus G. Fischer, Mem. Soc. Imp. des Nat. de Moscou, V, 1817, p. 418. 



Replacing Tayassu. 



The genus. Tayassu, containing the American pigs, differs from 

 Sus and the other Old World genera in having but four upper 

 incisors, and only three premolars on each side above and below, the 

 dental formula being i' tg, c i^\, pm |=|, m |^3=38 (fig. 6); their 

 median metacarpal and metg,tarsal bones are ankylosed into cannon- 



1 For a plea for tbe retention of the names Dicotyles and Dicotylidse, see Gill, 

 Proc. Biol. Soc, Washington, XV, p. 38, March .5, 1902; see also Thomas, idem, 

 pp. 153, 197 ; also Allen, Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., XVI, 1902, pp. 162, 167. 



^Although not indigenous to the region the family Suidse is repre,sented by 

 feral swine: 



SUS SCROFA DOMESTICUS. 



FERAL DOUESTIC HOG. 



Wild domestic pigs are numerous in many parts of Texas and Mexico, 

 along the Rio Grande, and are particularly abundant and ferocious about the 

 mouth of the Colorado River, in Sonera. If attacked they become dangerous 

 foes. While camped opposite the mouth of Hardy River, at tide water close to 

 the mouth of the Colorado, several large pigs were killed, and their excellent 

 Resh added to our bill of fare. These pigs, descended from Berkshire stock, 

 were black and of extraordinary size. The skull of an adult male, from near the 

 mouth of the Colorado River (No. 60356 U.S.N.M.), measures: Greatest length, 

 335 mm.; basal length, 342; basilar length (to tip of premaxillary), 292 

 palatal length to tip of premaxillary, 214 ; width of palate at first premolar, 51 

 zygomatic breadth, 169 ; least interorbital breadth, 81 ; length of nasals, 168 

 greatest breadth of both nasals together, 35 ; occipital depth (to lower rim of 

 foramen magnum), 124. 



Elliot, in his Land and Sea Mammals of Middle America and the West In- 

 dies (Field Columbian Museum, publication 95, zoological series, IV, Pt I, 1904, 

 pp. 61-68, fig. XXII and plates xxv-xxviii), uses the generic name Tagassu Frisch 

 (Das Natur-Syst. vierfiiss. Thiere, in Tabellen, 3 Tab. Gen., 1775. Type, Sus 

 tajacu Linnseus), and uses the family name Tagassuidce. See, however, Thomas 

 and Miller in Ann. and" Mag. Nat. Hist, 7th ser., XVI, pp. 461-464, October, 

 1905. 



