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Show 366 DR. C. I. FORSYTH MAJOR ON THE [Mar. 16, With the latter, the Madagascar Hog, which is the smallest of the three, agrees in the more simple pattern of the molar teeth. It approaches P. chceropotamus, besides in outer appearance, in the general configuration of the skull, which is narrower and comparatively longer; the upper contour of the profile is straighter in both than in P. porcus, the occiput less vertical, the facial region more elongate, and the osseous callosity which rises above and behind the upper canines is always higher. The characters proper to the Malagasy species are the great slenderness of the snout, the nasal region not being flattened nor angular laterally, but rouuded off, and the great massiveness and simplicity of the premolars. The lower premolars have an even greater tendency to disappear than in the continental forms, so that in old animals we sometimes meet with only one premolar. For all these reasons I consider the Malagasy Wild Hog to be a quite distinct form, and I therefore do not see any real reasons for disputing the hypothesis of Blanford. Besides, we have in Madagascar the subfossil Hippopotamus, which is very distinct from H. amphiblus, and the presence of which in the island cannot, in my opinion, possibly be explained in any other way than the case of the Potamochcerus, although it has seriously been suggested that the Hippopotamus might possibly have been brought over by man. 2. POTAMOCHCERUS CHCEROPOTAMUS (Desmoul.). Under the objectionable name of P. africanus, P. chceropotamus has been stated to range from the Cape through East Africa to British Central Africa and as far north as the Kilima-njaro. From British Central Africa the Natural History Museum has three skins, one without the skull, the other two from immature individuals; they are of a rufous colour, much resembling, as I have mentioned, the Malagasy Wild Boar, so that from the skins alone I could not venture to separate the two forms. Two skulls, male and female, from Lake Mweru (B. C. A.), collected by Messrs. A. Sharpe and R. Crawshay 1, agree fairly well with the South-African P. chceropotamus, although showing some features of their own, as in the conformation of the apophysis above the canine &c. It is possible that hereafter this rufous Nyasa Hog may be distinguished by a distinct specific name and that the Mweru skulls belong to the same form ; for the present the material is insufficient: on the one side, I have only skulls without skins (Mweru), on the other, skins without, or with only immature, skulls (Zomba, &c.). One thing is certain: all these Nyasa Bush-Pigs approach closely the South-African Potamochcerus chceropotamus ; and I must insist on this point, since some travellers, relying solely on the colour, have united them with the West- African P. porcus, with which they have nothing to do. I cannot, in fact, find a black-skinned Potamochcerus mentioned by 1 See P. Z. S. 1893, p. 723. |
