Page:Natural History Review (1862).djvu/49

38 varietiee at the present day, as for instance by the small sheep of the Shetlands, Orkneys, Welsh hills, and parts of the Alps. At Wauwyl, however, M. Rütimeyer found traces of an individual with large horns.

The number of wild species of Sheep is so great, and our knowledge of them is so deficient, that M. Rütimeyer does not venture to express any opinion concerning the origin of our domestic varieties, except that he is inclined to trace them up to several wild races.

It is singular, that though remains of the Horse have yet been found in all the Pileworks, they are so rare that their presence may almost be considered accidental: thus Wangen has only produced a single tooth, Moosseedorf, a metatarsal bone, which has been polished on one side, Robenhausen, a single Os naviculare tarsi, and Wauwyl, only a few bones, which may all have belonged to a single specimen. On the other hand, when we come to the Bronze period, we find at Steinberg, numerous remains of this species, so that, as far as these slight indications go, the Horse, though undoubtedly present in the Stone age, seems to have been rarer than it became at subsequent periods. All the remains of the Horse belonged undoubtedly to the domestic species.

Though he refers some bones to the Wild Boar, and others to the Domestic Hog, yet he considers that the greatest number of the remains of this genus belong to a different race, which he calls Sus scrofa palustris. This variety was, in his opinion, less powerful and dangerous than the Wild Boar, the tusks being much smaller in proportion; in fact he describes it as having with the molar teeth of an ordinary full grown Wild Boar, the premolars, canines, and incisives of a young Domestic Hog. He considers that all the bones of this variety from Moosseedorf, belonged to wild individuals, while of those from Nidau-Steinberg, Robenhausen, Wauwyl, and Concise, some bore in his opinion evidences of domestication. It has been subposed by some naturalists that this variety was founded only on female specimens, but in his last work, M. Rütimeyer combats this opinion at some length, and gives copious descriptions and measurements of the different parts. He also points out numerous sexual differences in the S. palustris, of the same nature, but not so well marked, as those of the Wild Boar. Relying also on its well defined geographical and historical range, he denies that it can be considerd as a cross between the Wild Boar and Domestic Hog, or that the differences which separate it from the former, can be looked upon as mere individual peculiarities. He considers, indeed, that as a wild animal it became extinct at a very early period, though the tame Swine of India which agree closely with this race may perhaps have been descended from it.

Our Domestic Hog first makes its appearance in the later Pileworks, as for instance at Concise. M. Rütimeyer does not, however, consider that it can have been derived from the Wild Boar (Sus scrofa), nor does he think that it was tamed by the inhabitants of Switzerland, but is rather disposed to look upon it as having been introduced, and the more so, as he finds at Concise traces