It is a remarkable fact that the boars of all domesticated breeds have
much shorter tusks than wild boars. Many facts show that with many
animals the state of the hair is much affected by exposure to, or
protection from, climate; and as we see that the state of the hair and
teeth are correlated in Turkish dogs (other analogous facts will be
hereafter given), may we not venture to surmise that the reduction of
the tusks in the domestic boar is related to his coat of bristles being
diminished from living under shelter? On the other hand, as we shall
immediately see, the tusks and bristles reappear with feral boars,
which are no longer protected from the weather. It is not surprising
that the tusks should be more affected than the other teeth; as parts
developed to serve as secondary sexual characters are always liable to
much variation.
It is a well-known fact that the young of wild European and Indian
pigs,[26] for the first six months, are longitudinally banded with
light-coloured stripes. This character generally disappears under
domestication. The Turkish domestic pigs, however, have striped
young, as have those of Westphalia, “whatever may be their
hue;”[27] whether these latter pigs belong to the same curly-haired
race as the Turkish swine, I do not know. The pigs which have run
wild in Jamaica and the semi-feral pigs of New Granada, both those
which are black and those which are black with a white band across
the stomach, often extending over the back, have resumed this
aboriginal character and produce longitudinally-striped young. This
is likewise the case, at least occasionally, with the neglected
pigs in the Zambesi settlement on the coast of Africa.[28]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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