THE HOG. 
11 
WILD HOG. 
if we are to apply the term species to indicate differences of form alone, we might say that the Domesticated Hog was specifically 
distinct from the Wild one. The number of teeth is regarded as the most constant of characters in the discrimination of species, 
and Naturalists are in the constant use of employing it in classification. But the character is in no degree constant, but varies with 
the external agents which affect the animals. In the wild state, the Hog has six incisor teeth in the upper and six in the lower 
jaw ; but, under the effects of domestication, the number is reduced to three in each jaw, and this number is not constant. The 
vertebrae of the back vary from fourteen to fifteen in number, the lumbar from four or five to six, the sacral from four to six, 
the caudal from twenty-three to three or four, the tail being often rudimental in the domesticated races. In the Transactions of 
the Zoological Society for February 1837, Mr T. E. Eyton, amongst other osteological differences in different races of Hogs, 
points out the following as applicable to the number of vertebrae : 
Cervical 
English male. 
7 
African female. 
7 
Chinese male. 
7 
Wild Boar. 
7 
Domestic Hog. 
7 
Dorsal 
15 
13 
15 
14 
14 
Lumbar 
6 
6 
4 
5 
5 
Sacral 
6 
5 
4 
4 
4 
Caudal 
21 
13 
19 
20 
23 
55 
44 
49 
50 
53 
Now all these races breed with one another as freely as those admitted to be of the same race, and the offspring of all of them 
are as fruitful as the parent stock. Mr Eyton naturally inquires, if we are to regard the African and the Chinese races as species 
distinct from the others ? But these two races do not differ more from the common Wild Hog than the latter does from the Do¬ 
mesticated Hog. The safer inference is, that all these animals are specifically the same, under the common acceptation of the 
term species, and that the differences in their conformation are the result of the different conditions under which they are placed with 
relation to food, climate, and other agents. Naturalists may term them distinct species if they will, for the characters which dis¬ 
tinguish species, as those which distinguish genera, classes, and orders, are but conventional. One writer may regard the Negro 
and the Papuan as of different species from the European, because they differ in the size and form of the cranium and nasal 
bones, the jaws, and so forth, and because the one possesses a glandular apparatus beneath the cuticle which is not at all, or im¬ 
perfectly, developed in the other: and we cannot say that the holder of such an opinion is in error, under the view which he him¬ 
self takes of the characters of species. When, therefore, questions arise regarding the specific distinctions of different races of 
Hogs, that which we can safely affirm is, that they are formed on the same plan, have similar habits, and that the differences be¬ 
tween them are not more than are produced under our eyes by the effects of known agents. 
The learned and ingenious Button, in his history of the Hog, both in the reclaimed and wild state, describes it as being the 
rudest of all quadrupeds, and as forming, even in the conformation of its body, a kind of anomaly amongst brutes. The imper¬ 
fections of its form, says he, seem to influence its dispositions; all its habits are gross, all its tastes unclean; all its sensations 
reduce themselves to a furious luxury and brutal gluttony, which makes it devour every thing that presents itself, even its own 
progeny. Its voracity seems to depend on the continual necessity it is under of filling the capacity of its large stomach, and the 
grossness of its appetites on the dulness of its senses of taste and touch. The roughness of the hair, the hardness of the skin, and 
thickness of the fat, render the animal little sensible to blows, and mice have been seen to lodge in its back, and eat its fat and 
skin, without its appearing to feel it. “ Its body is as unshapely as its physiognomy is stupid: its neck is so thick and short, that 
its head almost touches its shoulders : its forelegs are so short, that it seems forced to lower its head in order to support itself 
upon its feet, and all its body seems as if it were about to fall forward. No ease appears in its motions; no suppleness in its 
limbs, which it scarcely bends in order to carry itself in advance. Even in its moments of greatest fury, it has always a dull and 
constrained attitude; it strikes, thrusts, and tears with its tusks, but always without agility and address, without the power of being 
able to raise its head, or to bend' its body like other quadrupeds.” These are the remarks of a writer whose eloquence never fails 
to charm, even when his arguments the least satisfy the judgment. 
But the Hog, in its conformation, presents no anomaly, as our eloquent naturalist assumes, but is one of the links or reticula¬ 
tions by which all the forms of animated beings are connected. He is one of the pachydermatous or thick-skinned animals, of which 
the existing genera (exclusive of the Horse, which ought to be placed in a different tribe) are the Elephant, the Hippopotamus, 
the Rhinoceros, the Hyrax, the Tapir, the Hog. But while these types of many species alone remain, it appears thkt, in a former 
condition of this planet, ere Man himself was called into existence by his Creator, the Pachydermata were numerous, and formed 
a large proportion of the animated inhabitants of the earth. Their bones remain in vast numbers, but entire families of them 
