Page:The Hog.djvu/20

18 the wild species is entirely unknown. For example, the South Sea Islands, on their discovery by Europeans, were found to be well stocked with a small black-legged hog; and the traditionary belief of the people, in regard to the original introduction of these animals, showed that they were supposed to be as anciently descended as the people themselves. Yet the latter had no knowledge of the wild boar or any other animal of the hog kind, from which the domestic breed might have been supposed to be derived. The hog is in these islands the principal quadruped, and is more carefully cultivated than any other. The bread-fruit tree, either in the natural state or formed into sour paste, is its favorite food, and it is also abundantly supplied with yams, eddoes, and other vegetables. This choice of a nutritive and abundant diet, according to Foster, renders the flesh juicy and delicious; and the fat, though rich, is not less delicate to the taste than the finest butter. The Otaheitans and other South Sea Islanders were in the habit of presenting pigs at the morais, as the most savory and acceptable offering to their deities which they had it in their power to bestow. They covered the sacred pig with a piece of fine cloth, and left it to decay near the hallowed spot."

The pigs of these islands are evidently of the Cochin-Chinese or Siamese variety, or at least are closely allied to it, and were no doubt introduced at some remote period by the colonists of Malayan origin. Cook found the fowl, as well as the hog, at Ulietea and others of the Society Islands.

It has been doubted, and not without some reason, whether the domestic breed, so widely spread, is in every country attributable to the same specific origin. Certain it is that the various domestic races offer marked distinctive peculiarities, and if Mr. Eyton be correct, differences not only in the length of the snout, size of the ears, and symmetry of the body, but also in the number of the vertebræ of the spinal column. In the Proceedings of the Zoological Society for February 28th, 1837, p. 23, will be found the following observations by T. C. Eyton, Esq., on the osteological peculiarities to which we have alluded:—"Having during the last year prepared the skeleton of a male pig of the pure Chinese breed, brought over by Lord Northampton, I was surprised to find that a very great difference existed in the number of the vertebræ from that given in the Leçons d'Anatomic Comparee, vol. i., ed. 1835, p. 182, under the head either of Sanglier, or Cochon Domestique. A short time afterwards, through the kindness of Sir Rowland Hill, Bart., M. P., I prepared the skeleton of a female pig from Africa; this also differed, as also does the English long-legged sort, as it is commonly called. "The following table will show the differences in the number of the vertebræ in each skeleton with those given in the work above quoted:—