On the domestic pig of prehistoric times in Britain, and on the mutual relations of this variety of pig and Sus scrofa ferus, Sus cristatus, Sus andamanensis, and Sus barbatus / by George Rolleston.
- George Rolleston
- Date:
- 1876
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: On the domestic pig of prehistoric times in Britain, and on the mutual relations of this variety of pig and Sus scrofa ferus, Sus cristatus, Sus andamanensis, and Sus barbatus / by George Rolleston. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.
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![loth wild and domestic, as well as of Sus crlstatus and ^us indicus, at birth *. Lieu- tenants W. E. Baker and H. V. Eurand, in their paper on “ Subhimalayan Eossil Bemains of the Eadupiir Collection,” in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, vol. V. 1836, p. 661, observe of the two fossil skulls wdiich they describe, that in both “there is in the frontal plane a total absence of convexity. As this plane ascends there is a tendency to concavity, in consequence of the parietal crests being more strongly marked than in the existing species, and thus producing the appearance of a gentle hollow wEere, in the common Wild Hog, there would be a gentle swell.” Eurther on, in the same paper, the authors remark:—“Erom the form of the cranium, the shape of the canines and incisors, and the other points in which the fossil differs from the existing species of the country, a specific difference may be inferred; for the dissimilarity, although less than that which occurs between the Babyrussa, the /S. larmtus and the Bus scrofa, or Common Hog, is too remarkable, particularly in the shape of the canines of the lower jaw, to admit of the fossil being considered as a mere variety of the Bus scrofaB Sir Walter Elliot, however, to whom I owe this reference as well as other things, writes me to the effect that the skulls sent by him to me “ do not seem to differ much from the Subhimalayan fossil specimens figured and described,” as above specified. And it is worthy of being put upon record that of five skulls of modern Wild Indian Hogs thus sent by Sir Walter EUiot, three show the upgrowth of parietal crests, which Lieutenants Baker and Durand had supposed to be characteristic of the fossil animal, and to contribute towards justifying its claim to be considered specifically dis- tinct. These three skulls have the following labels and histories appended to them by Sir Walter Elliot, which, when coupled with the localities assigned below to the British- Museum specimens (specimens not, so far as I can see, different in any essential point from Sir W. Elliot’s), bear importantly on the question of the unity of Bus cristatus :— No. 71. Large Boar, killed near Bajkote, in Batty war, June 4, 1832. He was with a large sounder, and ripped two horses severely. Bajkote is in the extensive open plains of the Kattywar peninsula. No. 330. Nilgherry Hills, 1840. No. 428. Jaggiapettah, 1851. On the east side of the Madras Presidency, in the Masulipatam district, on the high road from Masulipatam to Hyderabad. These three skulls agree in having their third molars considerably worn and their canines large, their muscular insertion-surfaces marked with polygonal reticulations f in some places, and with arborescent markings in others, and, thirdly, in the spar-like hard- ness and density of the bones generally; and they must be supposed consequently to have belonged to old and powerful male animals. In all of these points they differ more or less from the other two skulls, also of male but of younger and less powerful animals. But such differences as these are far from being of specific value, either in comparison of modern races with fossil ones, or in comparison of modern races inter se. All the five skulls, however, lent to me by Sir Walter Elliot possess the lacrymo-frontal ridge developed into a very considerable prominence ; and though every now and then I have * See Nathusius, pi. i. figs. 1 ik 3, pi. iii. fig. 13, and pp. 3 & 13. Compare the mesial fulness in the frontals of S. ]papuemis. t For similar reticulation in Bos primigenius see Eiitimcyer, Fauna der Pfahlbauten, Taf. iii. fig. 3. 2 M 2](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22463471_0017.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
