result, a union of an African pig with a Hampshire hog, would be fruitful, than that a breed composed of the Berkshire, Chinese, and Neapolitan, would produce a good litter. Now, if we take little or no note of the differences in the caudal vertebræ, for the reason assigned by Mr. Eyton among others, what remain? Differences not exceeding two in the dorsal vertebræ, two in the lumbar vertetebræ, and one in the sacral vertebræ, after a course of domestication no one knows how long. We know what breeding will do with dogs. Take a greyhound and a true shepherd's dog, for example, to say nothing of tailless cats. We know what it will do among poultry: it will take away the drooping feathers of the cock's tail in those bantams known to fanciers as hen-cocks, (Sir J. Sebright's breed,) and remove the tail-feathers altogether (rumpless fowls); whilst in the top-knotted varieties an osteological difference is produced in the cranium. Man has occasionally an additional lumbar vertebræ. This accidental excess was first detected in the negro, and was laid hold of by those who would have made him a different species; but by-and-by they found a white man with one more vertebra than he ought to have had, and wisely said no more about it.
We have, then, no solid or sufficient grounds for believing that, widely as the domestic hog is spread, and remote and insulated as are some of the localities in which it has been discovered by voyagers, it is derived from different sources; although, as we have shown, there are more wild species of the restricted genus sus than zoologists formerly suspected. In making these remarks, we may add, that as to every general rule there are exceptions, so some are to be found here. The Papuan hog, caught and reared in captivity, is distinct, and it is probable that the domestic hogs of Borneo, and of some of the islands adjacent, are derived from the wild races there indigenous. Be this as it may, we do not mean to insist upon the fact; our subject is the ordinary hog, as we see it in its state of contented domestication in Europe, and especially our own country.
CHAPTER II.
The term Hog is stated by Carpenter, to be derived from the Hebrew word חזיר, by which this animal was designated among the Hebrews, a word derived from חזר, to encompass or surround, suggested by the round figure, in his fat and most natural state. Bochart and Schultens, however are more inclined to refer the Hebrew
