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THE RIVER PIG; OR, PAINTED PIG OF THE CAMAROON.*

THE other day we revisited the Zoological Gardens, and found that two old friends had got,-the one, a companion, the other, a neighbour. The latter was the bulky Hippopotamus, now most bearish, and more and more unmistakeably showing the minute accuracy of those master lines in the Book of Job, in which Behemoth's portrait, pose, and character are depicted. The former was the subject of this article; evidently, as far as colour goes, "the chieftain of the porcine race."

The poet tells us, however, "Nimium ne crede colori ;" and observation, as well as the Scripture, shows us daily that "fair havens " in summer, are but foul places to "winter in;" that fair speeches, and a flattering tongue, and the kisses of an enemy, 66 are deceitful;" and that beneath a fine spotted or barred coat, the jaguar and the tiger, the cobra and the hornet, conceal both the power and the propensity for mischief. So with our old friend Potamochorus. The pretty creature-beauty is relative,—the Camaroon pig is the prettiest, the gaudiest of the race—the pretty creature, we repeat, is of a fine bay red, made to look more bright from the circumstance of the face, ears, and front of the legs being black, while the red is relieved, and the black is defined, by the pencilled lines of white which edge the ears, streak over and under the eye, and ornament the long whiskers, another long white line traversing the middle of the back;-a very attractive combination of colour

* Potamochoerus penicellatus. Ilorapés, river; xogos, a pig; penicellatus, pencilled.

-the painting of "Him who made the world"—and one which must make the Potamochoerus penicellatus most conspicuous, among the bright green shrubs and dark marshes of the rivers of equinoctial Africa, on whose banks the race has been planted. The present largest specimen was taken, when a "piggie," by a trading captain, as it was swimming across the Camaroon River. He brought it to Liverpool; Dr. Gray of the British Museum gave an account of it in the "Illustrated Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London for 1852,"-an excellent work,-where its figure, drawn and coloured by the hand of Wolf, shows the condition of the African Sow four years ago. It was then a round, comfortable, kind-looking creature, which one might almost have fondled as a pet. The Pig now looks rather a dangerous beast, and its beauty is not increased by its face having grown longer, and by the bump and hollow on each cheek being larger and deeper; nor is its mouth so attractive or innocent, now that its tusks-those ivory daggers and knives of the family of Swine-have grown longer. The creature, partly it may be from familiarity, jumps up against the iron palisade which separates the visitor from its walk, but a poor pannage as a substitute for its African home. We would advise him to read the notice: "Visitors are requested not to teaze the animals ;"-" not to touch" would be a good reprint- for few, we fancy, would try to teaze.

One, however, especially a lady, likes to know and to feel texture; and sadly used the fine, mild Edward Cross of Exeter Change and the Surrey Zoological Gardens, once the Nestor as well as the King among Keepers of Wild Beasts-a gentle, gentlemanly, white-haired, venerable man, -sadly, we say, used Mr. Cross to lament that there were parasols, and that he could not keep them out of his Garden: Mr. C. told the writer that he lost many a beast and bird from the pokes of that insinuating weapon. We dissuade

PIGS AND PARASOLS.

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any lady from touching or going near a zebra's mouth, or the horns of an ibex or an algazel, or the pointed bill of a heron or stork, or from putting her hand near this fine Painted Pig.

Up jumps Potamochoerus-eye rather vindictive, however,―and mark, as that big specimen is foreshortened before you, the profile of the little companion pig of the same species, standing within a few feet, but safe from the poke of any umbrella or parasol; look how innocent and inviting, how quiet, and sleek, and polished, and painted, and mild, it looks, all but that little suspicious eye, with its wink oblique, and its malicious twinkle.

Of the habits of this pig we can find no written record, though in the Journals of the Scottish or Wesleyan Missionaries, there may be some notices of it. We do not know whence the Society procured the second specimen, but it shows that Africa's wild animals, like its chain of internal Caspian seas, and its mountain-ranges and rivers, are becoming gradually known. Old Bosman, who was chief factor for the Dutch on the Gold Coast 150 years ago, refers to the swine near Fort St. George d'Elmina, being not nearly so wild as those of Europe, and adds, "I have several times eaten of them here, and found them very delicious and very tender meat, the fat being extraordinary He evidently refers to some other species.

Travellers in South Africa have made us familiar with the habits, and specimens in the Zoological Gardens in a pannage close to that of the "Painted Pig" show us the form and ugliness, of the Bush pig and Flat pig (Choiropotamus Africanus) of that southern land, with their long heads, long legs, up-turned tails, and horrid tusks. They have a strange habit of kneeling on their fore-legs. In South Africa they

* A new and accurate description of the Coast of Guinea, written originally in Dutch. London, 1705, p. 247.

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abound; and the natives, our excellent friend, the Rev. Henry Methuen, tells us, often bring their jaws for barter. are of a dingy, dirty grey; the boar is two feet and a half high, and his tusks sometimes measure "eleven inches and a half each from the jaw-bone," are five inches and a half in circumference at the base, and are thirteen inches apart at their extremities.

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No animal is more formidably armed; and his rapidity and lightness of movement make him a very marked object to the African Nimrod, who, midst "clumps of bush be they Proteaceæ, Heaths, or Diosmex-not unfrequently comes on a herd of wild pigs "headed by a noble boar," with tail erect. We could enter largely on the history of this active species, and quote many a stirring anecdote of travellers' rencontres with this fearless animal. The lion skulks away from him, but the rhinoceros—at least one species—the buffalo, with his formidable front of horn and bone, and the bush pig, with his dreaded tusks, show but little fear; and it is well for the huntsman that he has a sure eye, a steady hand, and a double-barrelled gun, and not a few Caffir followers, to help him, should his eye be dim, his hand waver, or his gun "flash in the pan." Dogs avail but little; a deadly gash lays open their ribs, and a side-thrust of a wild boar will cut into the most muscular leg and for ever destroy its tendons. We have done with Pigs, and would only recommend a visita frequent visit-to that paradise of animals, the Zoological Gardens, where, a fortnight ago, we saw wild boars from Hesse Darmstadt; wild boars from Egypt; bush pigs from Africa; peccaries from South America; and two Painted Pigs from West Africa; all "de grege porci,” and in excellent health :-to say nothing of two hippopotamuses, four "seraphic" giraffes; antelopes (we did not number them); brush turkeys from Australia; an apteryx from New Zealand; the curious white sheathbills from the South Seas;

THE "PARADISUS" IN REGENT'S PARK.

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the refulgent metallic green and purple-tinted Monaul, or Impeyan pheasant, strutting with outspread, light-coloured tail, just as he courts his plain hen-mate on the Indian mountains; a family of the funny pelicans-cleanliness, ugliness, and contentment, in one happy combination; a band of flamingoes; eagles and vultures; the harpy-that Picton of the birds-looking defiance as he stands with upraised crest, flashing eye and clenched talons, over his food; the wily otter; the amiable seal, which carries us to the seas and rocks of much-loved Shetland, with their long, winding voes, their bird-frequented cliffs, and outlying skerries; the Indian thrush, which reminds one of a "mavis" at home; the parrot-house, with its fine contrasts of colour and its discordant noises; Penny's Esquimaux dog,-poor fellow-a prisoner, unlike to what he was when, with our dear friends Dr. Sutherland and Capt. Stewart, this very dog breasted the blast before a sledge in the Wellington Channel.* Look at that wondrous sloth, organised for a life in a Brazilian forest those two restless Polar bears; and though last, not least, those wonders of the great deep, "the sea-anemones," the exquisite red and white "feathery" tentacles of the long cylindrical twisted serpulæ, and marvellously transparent streaked shrimps, all leg, and feeler, and eye, and "nose"-in the salt-water tanks in the Vivarium.

* See Dr. Sutherland's interesting account in his "Journal of a Voyage in Baffin Bay and Barrow's Straits in the years 1850, 1851;" a truly excellent work on the Arctic Regions, by one who is now Surveyor of Natal.

March 10.

A. W.

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