WE have received an engraving of this animal from the celebrated M. Allamand, professor of Natural History at Leyden, and who has also written to M. Daubenton in the following terms:—"I conceive, Sir, that the animal represented in the plate which I sent you, is the same as that which you have treated of under the name of the wild boar of Cape Verd. The one whence it was taken is now living (May 5, 1767) in the menagerie of the Prince of Orange. I frequently visit him, and always receive pleasure from admiring the singular form of his head. It was transmitted by the Governor of the Cape of Good Hope, to whom I have written, requesting him to send me another, but of which I have little hopes, since even at the Cape it was regarded as a monster; yet should I succeed, I will send it to France, that you and M. de Buffon may have an opportunity of examining it. We put a common sow to the one we have, for the purpose of trying whether they would copulate, but the instant she came near him he darted at her, and tore her to pieces." In another letter M. Allamand remarks, that the most material difference between this and the common boar is in their heads, and in this boar’s having two very singular protuberances in the form of ears at the side of each eye. The aversion shewn by this animal to the sow, as well as the differences, both external and internal, in the forms of their heads, tends to prove it a distinct species from our hog; yet as it approaches nearer to that than to any other animal, and is found not only near Cape Verd but also in the neighbourhood of the Cape of Good Hope, we shall call it the African boar.
Vosmaër calls it the wild African boar, and very justly distinguishes it from the Guinea hog, the American peccari, and from the Indian babiroussa. This author, in his account, remarks, that, “M. de Buffon, speaking of the wild boar of Cape Verd preserved in the royal cabinet, says that it had cutting teeth; but no such teeth appear in the one I have. The animal came to me in a cage, but being informed he was not mischievous, I opened the door, and he came out, without shewing the least sign of rage; he bustled about in search of food, and greedily devoured whatever was given him. I left him alone for a few moments, and on my return found him busily employed in digging up the floor, in which, although paved with small bricks, closely cemented, he had made a very large hole, and it was not without the assistance of several men that I could make him give over and return to his cage, for he made much resistance, and expressed his resentment by sharp and mournful cries. He appears to have been taken in the woods of Africa when he was very young, for he has grown considerably since he was brought here; he is still alive, and was not much affected last winter, though the frost was very severe. He is far more agile than our hogs. He allows himself to be stroked, and appears fond of rough friction. When made angry he retires backwards, always facing his assailant, and shakes his head very forcibly. After having been confined for any length of time, on being let loose he is very sportive, leaps and pursues the deer, or other animals, and then carries his tail erect, which at other times is pendulous. He has a very strong odour, not disagreeable, yet I do not know any other smell with which it can be compared. He eats all sorts of grain; while bringing him over they fed him with maize, and as much fresh herbage as they could procure; but when he had tasted our barley and wheat he preferred them to other food, excepting roots dug out of the earth. He is so fond of rye-bread that he follows any person who holds him a piece of it. He sinks upon the knees of his fore legs when he eats or drinks, and in which position he often rests. He hears and smells very acutely, but from the smallness and situation of his eyes his sight is very limited; they are placed very high, and near each other, and have two large excrescences underneath them, so that he cannot perceive the objects which are round him.
His figure is very like that of the common hog, but he appears less, from his back being more flat and his legs shorter; compared with them also, he appears very deformed. His muzzle is large, flat, and hard; the nose is moveable, bent towards the base, and terminates obliquely; the nostrils are large, and distant from each other; the upper lip is hard and thick, very prominent round the tusks, and hangs pendulous over the corners of the muzzle. He has no front teeth, but the gums are smooth and hard. The tusks of the upper jaw are crooked, five inches and a half in length, pointed at the ends, and an inch thick at the base; those of the under jaw are much smaller, and from a constant friction against the upper appear to be cut obliquely. He would not permit us to examine his grinders. His eyes are small, the iris of a deep brown, and the cornea white; the upper eyelids have a brown, stiff, close cilia, longest in the middle, but there are no cilia on the under. The ears are pretty large, rather round, covered on the inside with yellow hair, and bent backwards. Besides the protuberances under the eyes there are two more, one on each side of the head. The skin appears to be thick; and there are several tufts of hair dispersed over his body. The forehead is covered with brown and white hairs; from thence is a narrow band of dark grey down to the beginning of the muzzle, where it divides and extends on each side of the head; the bristles are the longest and closest on the neck and anterior part of the back, they are of a brownish grey, and some of them seven or eight inches long; they are not thicker than those of the common hog, and split in the same manner; they have so few on the other part of the back, that it has the appearance of being naked; there are small white bristles on the flanks, breast, belly, and sides of the head and neck. Their feet are divided into two black pointed hoofs; the tail is naked, and hangs perpendicularly. The head is of a blackish colour, and the back and belly of a reddish grey. The width and flatness of the nose, together with the length of the snout, the protuberances under the eyes, and the long tusks, give this animal a dreadful aspect. He is about four Rhenish feet in length.”
Notwithstanding all these differences which M. Vosmaër has described, and the aversion which M. Allamand states it to have shewn to the common sow, I still have my doubts whether it be any thing more than a variety of the European hog; for we know that this species varies greatly in Asia, Siam, and China; and these doubts seem to be somewhat supported, by having found about thirty years since, an enormous head of a wild boar that had been killed in our own woods, the tusks of which were nearly as large as those of the Cape boar. To this may be added the information I received from M. Comerson, who says there are wild boars in Madagascar, whose heads are like the common kind from the ears to the eyes, but that under the eyes they have a protuberance, which decreasing gradually to the end of the snout, gives the animal the appearance of having two heads, the one being, as it were partly sunk in the other; and this information also made me conclude that the animal I have mentioned under the appellation of the wild boar of Cape Verd is the same as what is found in Madagascar.
AS the wolf is a native of cold climates, he must have passed northerly into America, since he is met with in both continents. We have spoken of the black and grey wolf of North America. It appears that this species is dispersed as far as New Spain and Mexico; and that in this warm climate it has undergone many varieties, without having changed either its disposition or nature, for the Mexican wolf has the same figure, appetites, and habitudes, as the European or North American wolf, and they all seem to be of the same species. The wolf of Mexico, or rather of New Spain, where he is much oftener found than in Mexico, has five toes on his fore-feet, and four on those behind. The ears are long and straight, and the eyes sparkling, like our wolves; but the head is larger, the neck thicker, and the tail not so bushy. Above the mouth there are some thick bristles, as large, but not so stiff as those of the hedge-hog. The body is covered with greyish hair, marked with some yellow spots. The head is of the same colour as the body, crossed with brown stripes, and the forehead adorned with sallow-coloured spots. The ears are grey, like the head and body. There is a long yellow spot on the neck, a second on the breast, and a third on the belly. The flank is marked with transverse bands from the back to the belly. The tail is grey with a yellow spot in the middle. The legs are striped from top to bottom with grey and brown. This wolf is the most beautiful of the kind, and its fur ought to be valued for its variety of colours.[AF] But in other respects there is not the least indication of its being a different species from the common wolves, which vary in colour from grey to white, and from white to black, without changing the species; and we see, by the testimony of Fernandes, that these wolves of New Spain vary like the European wolf, since even in that country they are not all marked agreeable to the above description, some being found of an uniform colour, and even all white.
[AF] It might have been suspected, from its variety of colours, that this Mexican wolf is a lynx, which species, as well as the wolf, is found in both continents. But it is sufficient to cast one’s eyes on the figure which Recchi has given, to discover that it resembles totally the wolf and not at all the lynx.