their prophet to the true faith, except the wild boar and buffalo, which remained unbelievers; it is on this account that both these animals are often called Christians. We are not surprised that the boar should be so denominated; but as the flesh of the buffalo, as well as its Leben or sour milk, is much esteemed by the Turks, it is difficult to account for the disgrace into which that animal has fallen among them; the only reason I could learn for it is, that the buffalo, like the hog, has a habit of rolling in the mud, and of plunging into the muddy ponds in the summer time up to the very nose, which alone remains visible above the surface." * Wild boars were frequently fallen in with by this traveller during his Syrian travels in the neighbourhood of rush-covered springs, where they could easily return to their "wallowing in the mire;" he also met with them on all the mountains he visited in his tour. In the Ghor they are very abundant, and so injurious to the Arabs of that valley that they are unable to cultivate the common barley on account of the eagerness with which the wild swine feed on it, and are obliged to grow a less esteemed kind, with six rows of grains which the swine will not touch.

Messrs Hemprich and Ehrenberg tell us that the wild boar is far from scarce in the marshy districts around Rosetta and Damietta, and that it does not seem to differ from the European species. The head of a wild boar which these travellers saw at Bischerre, a village of Lebanon, closely resembled the European variety, except in being a little longer. The Maronites there, who ate its flesh in their company, called it chansir,† a name evi* "Travels in Syria and the Holy Land," p. 9.

+ Symbolæ Physicæ.

The River Pig.

dently identical with the Hebrew word chasir, which occurs in the Bible. The Turks, according to Ehrenberg, keep swine in their stables, from a persuasion that all devils who may enter will be more likely to go into the pigs than the horses, from their alliance to the former unclean animals.-A. White, in "Excelsior."

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 unmistakably 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, 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 Potamochoerus. The pretty creature,-beauty is relativethe Cameroon pig is the prettiest, the gaudiest of the race, -the pretty creature, we repeat, is of a fine bay red, made

*Potamochoerus penicellatus. IIorauós, a river; xoîpos, a pig; penicellatus, pencilled. It is said to be the Sus porcus of Linnæus.

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-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 Cameroon 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 tease the animals;" "not to touch"