48 ZOOLOGY. 



Order: Multungula or Pachydermata (Many-hoofed 

 OR Thick-skinned Mammals). 



Non-ruminating hoofed animals with thick, often 

 callous, naked, or scantily haired, frequently bristly 

 skin and with three to five toes, which, though they 

 are not all developed to the same extent, are yet never 

 rudimentary. The various species are very unlike one 

 another as to food and dentition. Here belong do- 

 mesticated swine, and a single species — formerly occur- 

 ring wild in Britain — 



The Wild Boar (Sus eorofa). On each foot four toes, of which 

 the two hinder are small and do not usually touch the ground. 

 The wild boar agrees in the general conformation of its body 

 with the common domesticated swine. Six incisors in upper and 

 lower jaw ; the lower ones forwardly directed. The canines, which 

 are more developed in hoars than sows, curve outwards and upwards 

 in both jaws as "tusks." On each side of each jaw seven tuber- 

 culated back teeth completely covered with enamel. Length of 

 the body 5 feet 10 inches ; length of tail 1 foot 8 iuclies. Colour : 

 black and rusty brown. The young ones are white, spotted and 

 striped with darn: brown. The wild boar likes damp, swampy, 

 but at the same time thickly overgrown districts, where It remains 

 hidden in the day, only seeking the fields and meadows when it has 

 become dark and quite still. It then chiefly feeds on turnips, carrots, 

 and potatoes, rooting them out of the ground ; it also devours legu- 

 minous crops and grain, but treads down far more of these plants than 

 it eats. Besides this, it also feeds on acorns, beech-nuts, hazel-uuts, 

 and truffles. The wild boar does some service by devouring snails, 

 worms, insect larvse living in the soil, and also the pupae of destructive 

 species of caterpillars, which occur in the same situation ; also voles. 

 Thick hedges, in order to protect the corn from injury. 



Order : Solidungula (Single-hoofed Mammals), 



to which the horse and the ass belong, need not 

 be dealt with here ; still less the other orders enume- 

 rated on p. 23. 



