254 LLOYDS NATURAL HISTORY, 



twelfth century. As commonly translated, this passage states 

 that " the jarls of Orkney were in the habit of crossing over to 

 Caithness almost every summer, and there hunting in the 

 wilds the Red Deer and Reindeer." If we could depend on 

 this translation of the passage, which refers to the middle of the 

 twelfth century, there would be little doubt that Reindeer did 

 exist in Caithness. Unfortunately, however, the experts who 

 have examined the original are by no means agreed whether 

 Reindeer are really the animals intended ; and under these 

 circumstances it must remain a matter of doubt whether the 

 Reindeer was ever an inhabitant of Britain during the period 

 taken into consideration in the present volume. 



THE PIGS. FAMILY SUID^. 



From the two preceding Families and their allies, collectively 

 constituting the true Ruminants, the Pigs are at once distin- 

 guished by the presence of incisor teeth in the upper jaw, by 

 the lower canine teeth being unlike the incisors and in the 

 form of tusks, by the simpler structure of the molar teeth, 

 which have comparatively short crowns surmounted by blunt 

 tubercles, and by the simple character of the stomach and the 

 want of the power of chewing the cud. To these character- 

 istics it may be added that the third and fourth metacarpal 

 bones of the fore-feet and the corresponding metatarsals of 

 the hind ones are separate, and do not unite to form cannon- 

 bones ; while the metacarpals and metatarsals of the lateral toes 

 are complete. Since we have but a single species to deal with 

 which does not exist at the present time in a wild state in 

 Britain, we shall not give the characteristics or distribution of 

 either the genus or species, but merely consider the claims of 

 the latter to a place in the Fauna of the historical period of 

 Britain. 



