Whether the whole amount of difference between the various breeds be due to variation is doubtful. From the fertility of the most distinct breeds[111] when crossed, naturalists have generally looked at all the breeds as having descended from a single species. Few will agree with Colonel H. Smith, who believes that they have descended from no less than five primitive and differently coloured stocks.[112] But as several species and varieties of the horse existed[113] during the later tertiary periods, and as Rütimeyer found differences in the size and form of the skull in the earliest known domesticated horses,[114] we ought not to feel sure that all our breeds have descended from a single species. As we see that the savages of North and South America easily reclaim the feral horses, there is no improbability in savages in various quarters of the world having domesticated more than one native species or natural race. No aboriginal or truly wild horse is positively known now to exist; for it is thought by some authors that the wild horses of the East are escaped domestic animals.[115] If our domestic breeds have descended from several species or natural races, these apparently have all become extinct in the wild state. With our present knowledge, the common view that all have descended from a single species is, perhaps, the most probable.
With respect to the causes of the modifications which horses have undergone, the conditions of life seem to produce a considerable direct effect. Mr. D. Forbes, who has had excellent opportunities of comparing the horses of Spain with those of South America, informs me that the horses of Chile, which have lived under nearly the same conditions as their progenitors in Andalusia, remain unaltered, whilst the Pampas horses and the Puno ponies are considerably modified. There can be no doubt that horses become greatly reduced in size and altered in appearance by living on mountains and islands; and this apparently is due to want of nutritious or varied food. Every one knows how small and rugged the ponies are on the Northern islands and on the mountains of Europe. Corsica and Sardinia have their native ponies; and there were,[116] or still are, on some islands on the coast of Virginia, ponies like those of the Shetland Islands, which are believed to have originated through exposure to unfavourable conditions. The Puno ponies, which inhabit the lofty regions of the Cordillera, are, as I hear from Mr. D. Forbes, strange little creatures, very unlike their Spanish progenitors. Further south, in the Falkland Islands, the offspring of the horses imported in 1764 have already so much deteriorated in size[117] and strength that they are unfitted for catching wild cattle with the lasso; so that fresh horses have to be brought for this purpose from La Plata at a great expense. The reduced size of the horses bred on both southern and northern islands, and on several mountain-chains, can hardly have been caused by the cold, as a similar reduction has occurred on the Virginian and Mediterranean islands. The horse can withstand intense cold, for wild troops live on the plains of Siberia under lat. 56°,[118] and aboriginally the horse must have inhabited countries annually covered with snow, for he long retains the instinct of scraping it away to get at the herbage beneath. The wild tarpans in the East have this instinct; and, as I am informed by Admiral Sulivan, this is likewise the case with the horses which have run wild on the Falkland Islands; now this is the more remarkable as the progenitors of these horses could not have followed this instinct during many generations in La Plata: the wild cattle of the Falklands never scrape away the snow, and perish when the ground is long covered. In the northern parts of America the horses, descended from those introduced by the Spanish conquerors of Mexico, have the same habit, as have the native bisons, but not so the cattle introduced from Europe.[119]
The horse can flourish under intense heat as well as under intense cold, for he is known to come to the highest perfection, though not attaining a large size, in Arabia and northern Africa. Much humidity is apparently more injurious to the horse than heat or cold. In the Falkland Islands, horses suffer much from the dampness; and this same circumstance may perhaps partly account for the singular fact that to the eastward of the Bay of Bengal,[120] over an enormous and humid area, in Ava, Pegu, Siam, the Malayan archipelago, the Loo Choo Islands, and a large part of China, no full-sized horse is found. When we advance as far eastward as Japan, the horse reacquires his full size.[121]
With most of our domesticated animals, some breeds are kept on account of their curiosity or beauty; but the horse is valued almost solely for its utility. Hence semi-monstrous breeds are not preserved; and probably all the existing breeds have been slowly formed either by the direct action of the conditions of life, or through the selection of individual differences. No doubt semi-monstrous breeds might have been formed: thus Mr. Waterton records[122] the case of a mare which produced successively three foals without tails; so that a tailless race might have been formed like the tailless races of dogs and cats. A Russian breed of horses is said to have frizzled hair, and Azara[123] relates that in Paraguay horses are occasionally born, but are generally destroyed, with hair like that on the head of a negro; and this peculiarity is transmitted even to half-breeds: it is a curious case of correlation that such horses have short manes and tails, and their hoofs are of a peculiar shape like those of a mule.
It is scarcely possible to doubt that the long-continued selection of qualities serviceable to man has been the chief agent in the formation of the several breeds of the horse. Look at a dray-horse, and see how well adapted he is to draw heavy weights, and how unlike in appearance to any allied wild animal. The English race-horse is known to have proceeded from the commingled blood of Arabs, Turks, and Barbs; but selection and training have together made him a very different animal from his parent-stocks. As a writer in India, who evidently knows the pure Arab well, asks, who now, "looking at our present breed of race-horses, could have conceived that they were the result of the union of the Arab horse and African mare?" The improvement is so marked that in running for the Goodwood Cup "the first descendants of Arabian, Turkish, and Persian horses, are allowed a discount of 18 lbs. weight; and when both parents are of these countries a discount of 36 lbs."[124] It is notorious that the Arabs have long been as careful about the pedigree of their horses as we are, and this implies great and continued care in breeding. Seeing what has been done in England by careful breeding, can we doubt that the Arabs must likewise have produced during the course of centuries a marked effect on the qualities of their horses? But we may go much farther back in time, for in the most ancient known book, the Bible, we hear of studs carefully kept for breeding, and of horses imported at high prices from various countries.[125] We may therefore conclude that, whether or not the various existing breeds of the horse have proceeded from one or more aboriginal stocks, yet that a great amount of change has resulted from the direct action of the conditions of life, and probably a still greater amount from the long-continued selection by man of slight individual differences.
With several domesticated quadrupeds and birds, certain coloured marks are either strongly inherited or tend to reappear after having long been lost. As this subject will hereafter be seen to be of importance, I will give a full account of the colouring of horses. All English breeds, however unlike in size and appearance, and several of those in India and the Malay archipelago, present a similar range and diversity of colour. The English race-horse, however, is said[126] never to be dun-coloured; but as dun and cream-coloured horses are considered by the Arabs as worthless, "and fit only for Jews to ride,"[127] these tints may have been removed by long-continued selection. Horses of every colour, and of such widely different kinds as dray-horses, cobs, and ponies, are all occasionally dappled,[128] in the same manner as is so conspicuous with grey horses. This fact does not throw any clear light on the colouring of the aboriginal horse, but is a case of analogous variation, for even asses are sometimes dappled, and I have seen, in the British Museum, a hybrid from the ass and zebra dappled on its hinder quarters. By the expression analogous variation (and it is one that I shall often have occasion to use) I mean a variation occurring in a species or variety which resembles a normal character in another and distinct species or variety. Analogous variations may arise, as will be explained in a future chapter, from two or more forms with a similar constitution having been exposed to similar conditions,—or from one of two forms having reacquired through reversion a character inherited by the other form from their common progenitor,—or from both forms having reverted to the same ancestral character. We shall immediately see that horses occasionally exhibit a tendency to become striped over a large part of their bodies; and as we know that stripes readily pass into spots and cloudy marks in the varieties of the domestic cat and in several feline species—even the cubs of the uniformly-coloured lion being spotted with dark marks on a lighter ground—we may suspect that the dappling of the horse, which has been noticed by some authors with surprise, is a modification or vestige of a tendency to become striped.
Fig. 1.—Dun Devonshire Pony, with shoulder, spinal, and leg stripes.
This tendency in the horse to become striped is in several respects an interesting feet. Horses of all colours, of the most diverse breeds, in various parts of the world, often have a dark stripe extending along the spine, from the mane to the tail; but this is so common that I need enter into no particulars.[129] Occasionally horses are transversely barred on the legs, chiefly on the under side; and more rarely they have a distinct stripe on the shoulder, like that on the shoulder of the ass, or a broad dark patch representing a stripe. Before entering on any details I must premise that the term dun-coloured is vague, and includes three groups of colour, viz. that between cream-colour and reddish-brown, which graduates into light-bay or light-chesnut—this, I believe, is often called fallow-dun; secondly, leaden or slate-colour or mouse-dun, which graduates into an ash-colour; and, lastly, dark-dun, between brown and black. In England I have examined a rather large, lightly-built, fallow-dun Devonshire pony (fig. 1), with a conspicuous stripe along the back, with light transverse stripes on the under sides of its front legs, and with four parallel stripes on each shoulder. Of these four stripes the posterior one was very minute and faint; the anterior one, on the other hand, was long and broad, but interrupted in the middle, and truncated at its lower extremity, with the anterior angle produced into a long tapering point. I mention this latter fact because the shoulder-stripe of the ass occasionally presents exactly the same appearance. I have had an outline and description sent to me of a small, purely-bred, light fallow-dun Welch pony, with a spinal stripe, a single transverse stripe on each leg, and three shoulder-stripes; the posterior stripe corresponding with that on the shoulder of the ass was the longest, whilst the two anterior parallel stripes, arising from the mane, decreased in length, in a reversed manner as compared with the shoulder-stripes on the above-described Devonshire pony. I have seen a bright fallow-dun, strong cob, with its front legs transversely barred on the under sides in the most conspicuous manner; also a dark-leaden mouse-coloured pony with similar leg stripes, but much less conspicuous; also a bright fallow-dun colt, fully three-parts thoroughbred, with very plain transverse stripes on the legs; also a chesnut-dun cart-horse with a conspicuous spinal stripe, with distinct traces of shoulder-stripes, but none on the legs; I could add other cases. My son made a sketch for me of a large, heavy, Belgian cart-horse, of a fallow-dun, with a conspicuous spinal stripe, traces of leg-stripes, and with two parallel (three inches apart) stripes about seven or eight inches in length on both shoulders. I have seen another rather light cart-horse, of a dirty dark cream-colour, with striped legs, and on one shoulder a large ill-defined dark cloudy patch, and on the opposite shoulder two parallel faint stripes. All the cases yet mentioned are duns of various tints; but Mr. W. W. Edwards has seen a nearly thoroughbred chesnut horse which had the spinal stripe, and distinct bars on the legs; and I have seen two bay carriage-horses with black spinal stripes; one of these horses had on each shoulder a light shoulder-stripe, and the other had a broad black ill-defined stripe, running obliquely half-way down each shoulder; neither had leg-stripes.
The most interesting case which I have met with occurred in a colt of my own breeding. A bay mare (descended from a dark-brown Flemish mare by a light grey Turcoman horse) was put to Hercules, a thoroughbred dark bay, whose sire (Kingston) and dam were both bays. The colt ultimately turned out brown; but when only a fortnight old it was a dirty bay, shaded with mouse-grey, and in parts with a yellowish tint: it had only a trace of the spinal stripe, with a few obscure transverse bars on the legs; but almost the whole body was marked with very narrow dark stripes, in most parts so obscure as to be visible only in certain lights, like the stripes which may be seen on black kittens. These stripes were distinct on the hind-quarters, where they diverged from the spine, and pointed a little forwards; many of them as they diverged from the spine became a little branched, exactly in the same manner as in some zebrine species. The stripes were plainest on the forehead between the ears, where they formed a set of pointed arches, one under the other, decreasing in size downwards towards the muzzle; exactly similar marks may be seen on the forehead of the quagga and Burchell's zebra. When this foal was two or three months old all the stripes entirely disappeared. I have seen similar marks on the forehead of a fully grown, fallow-dun, cob-like horse, having a conspicuous spinal stripe, and with its front legs well barred.
In Norway the colour of the native horse or pony is dun, varying from almost cream-colour to dark mouse-dun; and an animal is not considered purely bred unless it has the spinal and leg stripes.[130] In one part of the country my son estimated that about a third of the ponies had striped legs; he counted seven stripes on the fore-legs and two on the hind-legs of one pony; only a few of them exhibited traces of shoulder-stripes; but I have heard of a cob imported from Norway which had the shoulder as well as the other stripes well developed. Colonel Ham. Smith[131] alludes to dun-horses with the spinal stripe in the Sierras of Spain; and the horses originally derived from Spain, in some parts of South America, are now duns. Sir W. Elliot informs me that he inspected a herd of 300 South American horses imported into Madras, and many of these had transverse stripes on the legs and short shoulder-stripes; the most strongly marked individual, of which a coloured drawing was sent me, was a mouse-dun, with the shoulder-stripes slightly forked.
In the North-Western parts of India striped horses of more than one breed are apparently commoner than in any other part of the world; and I have received information respecting them from several officers, especially from Colonel Poole, Colonel Curtis, Major Campbell, Brigadier St. John, and others. The Kattywar horses are often fifteen or sixteen hands in height, and are well but lightly built. They are of all colours, but the several kinds of duns prevail; and these are so generally striped, that a horse without stripes is not considered pure. Colonel Poole believes that all the duns have the spinal stripe, the leg-stripes are generally present, and he thinks that about half the horses have the shoulder-stripe; this stripe is sometimes double or treble on both shoulders. Colonel Poole has often seen stripes on the cheeks and sides of the nose. He has seen stripes on the grey and bay Kattywars when first foaled, but they soon faded away. I have received other accounts of cream-coloured, bay, brown, and grey Kattywar horses being striped. Eastward of India, the Shan (north of Burmah) ponies, as I am informed by Mr. Blyth, have spinal, leg, and shoulder stripes. Sir W. Elliot informs me that he saw two bay Pegu ponies with leg-stripes. Burmese and Javanese ponies are frequently dun-coloured, and have the three kinds of stripes, "in the same degree as in England."[132] Mr. Swinhoe informs me that he examined two light-dun ponies of two Chinese breeds, viz. those of Shangai and Amoy; both had the spinal stripe, and the latter an indistinct shoulder-stripe.
We thus see that in all parts of the world breeds of the horse as different as possible, when of a dun-colour (including under this term a wide range of tint from cream to dusky black), and rarely when of bay, grey, and chesnut shades, have the several above-specified stripes. Horses which are of a yellow colour with white mane and tail, and which are sometimes called duns, I have never seen with stripes.[133]
From reasons which will be apparent in the chapter on Reversion, I have endeavoured, but with poor success, to discover whether duns, which are so much oftener striped than other coloured horses, are ever produced from the crossing of two horses, neither of which are duns. Most persons to whom I have applied believe that one parent must be a dun; and it is generally asserted, that, when this is the case, the dun-colour and the stripes are strongly inherited.[134] One case has fallen under my own observation of a foal from a black mare by a bay horse, which when fully grown was a dark fallow-dun and had a narrow but plain spinal stripe. Hofacker[135] gives two instances of mouse-duns (Mausrapp) being produced from two parents of different colours and neither duns.
I have also endeavoured with little success to find out whether the stripes are generally plainer or less plain in the foal than in the adult horse. Colonel Poole informs me that, as he believes, "the stripes are plainest when the colt is first foaled; they then become less and less distinct till after the first coat is shed, when they come out as strongly as before; but certainly often fade away as the age of the horse increases." Two other accounts confirm this fading of the stripes in old horses in India. One writer, on the other hand, states that colts are often born without stripes, but that they appear as the colt grows older. Three authorities affirm that in Norway the stripes are less plain in the foal than in the adult. Perhaps there is no fixed rule. In the case described by me of the young foal which was narrowly striped over nearly all its body, there was no doubt about the the early and complete disappearance of the stripes. Mr. W. W. Edwards examined for me twenty-two foals of race-horses, and twelve had the spinal stripe more or less plain; this fact, and some other accounts which I have received, lead me to believe that the spinal stripe often disappears in the English race-horse when old. On the whole I infer that the stripes are generally plainest in the foal, and tend to disappear in old age.
The stripes are variable in colour, but are always darker than the rest of the body. They do not by any means always coexist on the different parts of the body: the legs may be striped without any shoulder-stripe, or the converse case, which is rarer, may occur; but I have never heard of either shoulder or leg-stripes without the spinal stripe. The latter is by far the commonest of all the stripes, as might have been expected, as it characterises the other seven or eight species of the genus. It is remarkable that so trifling a character as the shoulder-stripe being double or triple should occur in such different breeds as Welch and Devonshire ponies, the Shan pony, heavy cart-horses, light South American horses, and the lanky Kattywar breed. Colonel Hamilton Smith believes that one of his five supposed primitive stocks was dun-coloured and striped; and that the stripes in all the other breeds result from ancient crosses with this one primitive dun; but it is extremely improbable that different breeds living in such distant quarters of the world should all have been crossed with any one aboriginally distinct stock. Nor have we any reason to believe that the effects of a cross at a very remote period could be propagated for so many generations as is implied on this view.
With respect to the primitive colour of the horse having been dun, Colonel Hamilton Smith[136] has collected a large body of evidence showing that this tint was common in the East as far back as the time of Alexander, and that the wild horses of Western Asia and Eastern Europe now are, or recently were, of various shades of dun. It seems that not very long ago a wild breed of dun-coloured horses with a spinal stripe was preserved in the royal parks in Prussia. I hear from Hungary that the inhabitants of that country look at the duns with a spinal stripe as the aboriginal stock, and so it is in Norway. Dun-coloured ponies are not rare in the mountainous parts of Devonshire, Wales, and Scotland, where the aboriginal breed would have had the best chance of being preserved. In South America in the time of Azara, when the horse had been feral for about 250 years, 90 out of 100 horses were "bai-châtains," and the remaining ten were "zains," and not more than one in 2000 black. Zain is generally translated as dark without any white; but as Azara speaks of mules being "zain-clair," I suspect that zain must have meant dun-coloured. In some parts of the world feral horses show a strong tendency to become roans.[137]
In the following chapters on the Pigeon we shall see that in pure breeds of various colours, when a blue bird is occasionally produced, certain black marks invariably appear on the wings and tail; so again, when variously coloured breeds are crossed, blue birds with the same black marks are frequently produced. We shall further see that these facts are explained by, and afford strong evidence in favour of, the view that all the breeds are descended from the rock-pigeon, or Columba livia, which is thus coloured and marked. But the appearance of the stripes on the various breeds of the horse, when of a dun-colour, does not afford nearly such good evidence of their descent from a single primitive stock as in the case of the pigeon; because no certainly wild horse is known as a standard of comparison; because the stripes when they do appear are variable in character; because there is far from sufficient evidence of the appearance of the stripes from the crossing of distinct breeds; and lastly, because all the species of the genus Equus have the spinal stripe, and several have shoulder and leg stripes. Nevertheless the similarity in the most distinct breeds in their general range of colour, in their dappling, and in the occasional appearance, especially in duns, of leg-stripes and of double or triple shoulder-stripes, taken together, indicate the probability of the descent of all the existing races from a single, dun-coloured, more or less striped, primitive stock, to which our horses still occasionally revert.
The Ass.
Four species of Asses, besides three of zebras, have been described by naturalists; but there can now be little doubt that our domesticated animal is descended from one alone, namely, the Asinus tæniopus of Abyssinia.[138] The ass is sometimes advanced as an instance of an animal domesticated, as we know by the Old Testament, from an ancient period, which has varied only in a very slight degree. But this is by no means strictly true; for in Syria alone there are four breeds;[139] first, a light and graceful animal, with an agreeable gait, used by ladies; secondly, an Arab breed reserved exclusively for the saddle; thirdly, a stouter animal used for ploughing and various purposes; and lastly, the large Damascus breed, with a peculiarly long body and ears. In this country, and generally in Central Europe, though the ass is by no means uniform in appearance, it has not given rise to distinct breeds like those of the horse. This may probably be accounted for by the animal being kept chiefly by poor persons, who do not rear large numbers, nor carefully match and select the young. For, as we shall see in a future chapter, the ass can with ease be greatly improved in size and strength by careful selection, combined no doubt with good food; and we may infer that all its other characters would be equally amenable to selection. The small size of the ass in England and Northern Europe is apparently due far more to want of care in breeding than to cold; for in Western India, where the ass is used as a beast of burden by some of the lower castes, it is not much larger than a Newfoundland dog, "being generally not more than from twenty to thirty inches high."[140]
The ass varies greatly in colour; and its legs, especially the fore-legs, both in England and other countries—for instance, in China—are occasionally barred transversely more plainly than those of dun-coloured horses. With the horse the occasional appearance of leg-stripes was accounted for, through the principle of reversion, by the supposition that the primitive horse was thus striped; with the ass we may confidently advance this explanation, for the parent-form, the A. tæniopus, is known to be barred, though only in a slight degree, across the legs. The stripes are believed to occur most frequently and to be plainest on the legs of the domestic ass during early youth,[141] as is apparently likewise the case with the horse. The shoulder-stripe, which is so eminently characteristic of the species, is nevertheless variable in breadth, length, and manner of termination. I have measured a shoulder-stripe four times as broad as another; and some more than twice as long as others. In one light-grey ass the shoulder-stripe was only six inches in length, and as thin as a piece of string; and in another animal of the same colour there was only a dusky shade representing a stripe. I have heard of three white asses, not albinoes, with no trace of shoulder or spinal stripes;[142] and I have seen nine other asses with no shoulder-stripe, and some of them had no spinal stripe. Three of the nine were light-greys, one a dark-grey, another grey passing into reddish-roan, and the others were brown, two being tinted on parts of their bodies with a reddish or bay shade. Hence we may conclude that, if grey and reddish-brown asses had been steadily selected and bred from, the shoulder-stripe would have been almost as generally and as completely lost as in the case of the horse.
The shoulder-stripe on the ass is sometimes double, and Mr. Blyth has seen even three or four parallel stripes.[143] I have observed in ten cases shoulder-stripes abruptly truncated at the lower end, with the anterior angle produced into a tapering point, precisely as has been figured in the dun Devonshire pony. I have seen three cases of the terminal portion abruptly and angularly bent; and two cases of a distinct though slight forking. In Syria, Dr. Hooker and his party observed for me no less than five instances of the shoulder-stripe being plainly forked over the fore leg. In the common mule it is likewise sometimes forked. When I first noticed the forking and angular bending of the shoulder-stripe, I had seen enough of the stripes in the various equine species to feel convinced that even a character so unimportant as this had a distinct meaning, and was thus led to attend to the subject. I now find that in the Asinus Burchellii and quagga, the stripe which corresponds with the shoulder-stripe of the ass, as well as some of the stripes on the neck, bifurcate, and that some of those near the shoulder have their extremities angularly bent backwards. The forking and angular bending of the stripes on the shoulders apparently stand in relation with the changed direction of the nearly upright stripes on the sides of the body and neck to the transverse bars on the legs. Finally we see that the presence of shoulder, leg, and spinal stripes in the horse,—their occasional absence in the ass,—the occurrence of double and triple shoulder-stripes in both animals, and the similar manner in which these stripes terminate at their lower extremities,—are all cases of analogous variation in the horse and ass. These cases are probably not due to similar conditions acting on similar constitutions, but to a partial reversion in colour to the common progenitor of these two species, as well as of the other species of the genus. We shall hereafter have to return to this subject, and discuss it more fully.
PIGS—CATTLE—SHEEP—GOATS.
PIGS BELONG TO TWO DISTINCT TYPES, SUS SCROFA AND INDICA—TORF-SCHWEIN—JAPAN PIG—FERTILITY OF CROSSED PIGS—CHANGES IN THE SKULL OF THE HIGHLY CULTIVATED RACES—CONVERGENCE OF CHARACTER—GESTATION—SOLID-HOOFED SWINE—CURIOUS APPENDAGES TO THE JAWS—DECREASE IN SIZE OF THE TUSKS—YOUNG PIGS LONGITUDINALLY STRIPED—FERAL PIGS—CROSSED BREEDS.
CATTLE.—ZEBU A DISTINCT SPECIES—EUROPEAN CATTLE PROBABLY DESCENDED FROM THREE WILD FORMS—ALL THE RACES NOW FERTILE TOGETHER—BRITISH PARK CATTLE—ON THE COLOUR OF THE ABORIGINAL SPECIES—CONSTITUTIONAL DIFFERENCES—SOUTH AFRICAN RACES—SOUTH AMERICAN RACES—NIATA CATTLE—ORIGIN OF THE VARIOUS RACES OF CATTLE.
SHEEP.—REMARKABLE RACES OF—VARIATIONS ATTACHED TO THE MALE SEX—ADAPTATIONS TO VARIOUS CONDITIONS—GESTATION OF—CHANGES IN THE WOOL—SEMI-MONSTROUS BREEDS.
GOATS.—REMARKABLE VARIATIONS OF.
The breeds of the pig have recently been more closely studied, though much still remains to be done, than those of almost any other domesticated animal. This has been effected by Hermann von Nathusius in two admirable works, especially in the later one on the Skulls of the several races, and by Rütimeyer in his celebrated Fauna of the ancient Swiss lake-dwellings.[144] Nathusius has shown that all the known breeds may be divided in two great groups: one resembling in all important respects and no doubt descended from the common wild boar; so that this may be called the Sus scrofa group. The other group differs in several important and constant osteological characters; its wild parent-form is unknown; the name given to it by Nathusius, according to the law of priority, is Sus Indica of Pallas. This name must now be followed, though an unfortunate one, as the wild aboriginal does not inhabit India, and the best-known domesticated breeds have been imported from Siam and China.
Firstly, the Sus scrofa breeds, or those resembling the common wild boar. These still exist, according to Nathusius (Schweineschädel, s. 75), in various parts of central and northern Europe; formerly every kingdom,[145] and almost every province in Britain, possessed its own native breed; but these are now everywhere rapidly disappearing, being replaced by improved breeds crossed with the S. Indica form. The skull in the breeds of the S. scrofa type resembles, in all important respects, that of the European wild boar; but it has become (Schweineschädel, s. 63-68) higher and broader relatively to its length; and the hinder part is more upright. The differences, however, are all variable in degree. The breeds which thus resemble S. scrofa in their essential skull-characters differ conspicuously from each other in other respects, as in the length of the ears and legs, curvature of the ribs, colour, hairiness, size and proportions of the body.
The wild Sus scrofa has a wide range, namely, Europe, North Africa, as identified by osteological characters by Rütimeyer, and Hindostan, as similarly identified by Nathusius. But the wild boars inhabiting these several countries differ so much from each other in external characters, that they have been ranked by some naturalists as specifically distinct. Even within Hindostan these animals, according to Mr. Blyth, form very distinct races in the different districts; in the N. Western provinces, as I am informed by the Rev. R. Everest, the boar never exceeds 36 inches in height, whilst in Bengal one has been measured 44 inches in height. In Europe, Northern Africa, and Hindostan, domestic pigs have been known to cross with the wild native species;[146] and in Hindostan an accurate observer,[147] Sir Walter Elliot, after describing the differences between wild Indian and wild German boars, remarks that "the same differences are perceptible in the domesticated individuals of the two countries." We may therefore conclude that the breeds of the Sus scrofa type have either descended from, or been modified by crossing with, forms which may be ranked as geographical races, but which are, according to some naturalists, distinct species.
Pigs of the Sus Indica type are best known to Englishmen under the form of the Chinese breed. The skull of S. Indica, as described by Nathusius, differs from that of S. scrofa in several minor respects, as in its greater breadth and in some details in the teeth; but chiefly in the shortness of the lachrymal bones, in the greater width of the fore part of the palate-bones, and in the divergence of the premolar teeth. It deserves especial notice that these latter characters are not gained, even in the least degree, by the domesticated forms of S. scrofa. After reading the remarks and descriptions given by Nathusius, it seems to me to be merely playing with words to doubt whether S. Indica ought to be ranked as a species; for the above-specified differences are more strongly marked than any that can be pointed out between, for instance, the fox and the wolf, or the ass and the horse. As already stated, S. Indica is not known in a wild state; but its domesticated forms, according to Nathusius, come near to S. vittatus of Java and some allied species. A pig found wild in the Aru islands (Schweineschädel, s. 169) is apparently identical with S. Indica; but it is doubtful whether this is a truly native animal. The domesticated breeds of China, Cochin-China, and Siam belong to this type. The Roman or Neapolitan breed, the Andalusian, the Hungarian, and the "Krause" swine of Nathusius, inhabiting south-eastern Europe and Turkey, and having fine curly hair, and the small Swiss "Bündtnerschwein" of Rütimeyer, all agree in their more important skull characters with S. Indica, and, as is supposed, have all been largely crossed with this form. Pigs of this type have existed during a long period on the shores of the Mediterranean, for a figure (Schweineschädel, s. 142) closely resembling the existing Neapolitan pig has been found in the buried city of Herculaneum.
Rütimeyer has made the remarkable discovery that there lived contemporaneously in Switzerland, during the later Stone or Neolithic period, two domesticated forms, the S. scrofa, and the S. scrofa palustris or Torfschwein. Rütimeyer perceived that the latter approached the Eastern breeds, and, according to Nathusius, it certainly belongs to the S. Indica group; but Rütimeyer has subsequently shown that it differs in some well-marked characters. This author was formerly convinced that his Torfschwein existed as a wild animal during the first part of the Stone period, and was domesticated during a later part of the same period.[148] Nathusius, whilst he fully admits the curious fact first observed by Rütimeyer, that the bones of domesticated and wild animals can be distinguished by their different aspect, yet, from special difficulties in the case of the bones of the pig (Schweineschädel, s. 147), is not convinced of the truth of this conclusion; and Rütimeyer himself seems now to feel some doubt. As the Torfschwein was domesticated at so early a period, and as its remains have been found in several parts of Europe, belonging to various historic and prehistoric ages,[149] and as closely allied forms still exist in Hungary and on the shores of the Mediterranean, one is led to suspect that the wild S. Indica formerly ranged from Europe to China, in the same manner as S. scrofa now ranges from Europe to Hindostan. Or, as Rütimeyer apparently suspects, a third allied species may formerly have lived in Europe and Eastern Asia.
Several breeds, differing in the proportions of the body, in the length of the ears, in the nature of the hair, in colour, &c., come under the S. Indica type. Nor is this surprising, considering how ancient the domestication of this form has been both in Europe and in China. In this latter country the date is believed by an eminent Chinese scholar[150] to go back at least 4900 years from the present time. This same scholar alludes to the existence of many local varieties of the pig in China; and at the present time the Chinese take extraordinary pains in feeding and tending their pigs, not even allowing them to walk from place to place.[151] Hence the Chinese breed, as Nathusius has remarked,[152] displays in an eminent degree the characters of a highly-cultivated race, and hence, no doubt, its high value in the improvement of our European breeds. Nathusius makes a remarkable statement (Schweineschädel, s. 138), that the infusion of the 1/32nd, or even of the 1/64th, part of the blood of S. Indica into a breed of S. scrofa, is sufficient plainly to modify the skull of the latter species. This singular fact may perhaps be accounted for by several of the chief distinctive characters of S. Indica, such as the shortness of the lachrymal bones, &c., being common to several of the species of the genus; for in crosses the characters which are common to many species apparently tend to be prepotent over those appertaining to only a few species.
The Japan pig (S. pliciceps of Gray), which has been recently exhibited in the Zoological Gardens, has an extraordinary appearance from its short head, broad forehead and nose, great fleshy ears, and deeply furrowed skin. The following woodcut is copied from that given by Mr. Bartlett.[153] Not only is the face furrowed, but thick folds of skin, which are harder than the other parts, almost like the plates on the Indian rhinoceros, hang about the shoulders and rump. It is coloured black, with white feet, and breeds true. That it has long been domesticated there can be little doubt; and this might have been inferred even from the fact that its young are not longitudinally striped; for this is a character common to all the species included within the genus Sus and the allied genera whilst in their natural state.[154] Dr. Gray[155] has described the skull of this animal, which he ranks not only as a distinct species, but places it in a distinct section of the genus. Nathusius, however, after his careful study of the whole group, states positively (Schweineschädel, s. 153-158) that the skull in all essential characters closely resembles that of the short-eared Chinese breed of the S. Indica type. Hence Nathusius considers the Japan pig as only a domesticated variety of S. Indica: if this really be the case, it is a wonderful instance of the amount of modification which can be effected under domestication.