File:The game animals of Africa (1908) (14732391186).jpg

Identifier: gameanimalsofafr00lyde (find matches)
Title: The game animals of Africa
Year: 1908 (1900s)
Authors: Lydekker, Richard, 1849-1915
Subjects: Game and game-birds Hunting Big game animals
Publisher: London, R. Ward, limited
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Smithsonian Libraries

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to an ordinary pig as does an Indian elephantto its extinct relatives the mastodons. Although larger in boars thanin sows, the tusks are well developed in both sexes; and in thecircumstance that the upper ones are longer than the lower, thesetusks are just the opposite to those of ordinary swine. The blackhide is sparsely coated with bristly hair, which may be almost com-pletely shed in old animals ; but there is a mane of coarse stiff bristles 400 SI VINE GROUP on the neck, and the tail terminates in a tuft. The general colourin the typical southern wart-hog is brownish grey with a more orless marked rufous tinge in some instances. The young are notstriped or spotted. In shape, the skull is altogether peculiar, beingvery wide and long, much flattened, with a highly concave profile, andthe portion behind the sockets of the eyes extremely short. In heightthe wart-hog stands about 30 inches at the shoulder ; while the weightof a large boar may reach as much as 210 lb. The record lengths
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Fig. 85.-—Wart-Hog Tusks, from a specimen shot l)y Mr. ¥. H. Barber. for upper tusks are 27 and 26 inches along the convexity ; but lowertusks, measured in the same manner, seldom exceed 6 inches. The typical wart-hog is a native of Africa south of the Zambesi ;it has been stated that its southern limit was formed by the Orangeriver, but, although none of these animals are to be met with at thepresent day in Cape Colony, it seems not improbable that their rangemay have formerly extended westward from Natal through Kafrariato the original frontier of Cape Colony. The wart-hog of the country to the northward of the Zambesi hasbeen regarded as a distinct species, but seems best regarded, under thename of PhacocJiosrus atJiiopicus afjicanus, merely as a local race of thesouthern animal. Its range embraces East, Central, and West Africa, WART-HOG 401 extending on the east from the Zambesi to the eastern Sudan andAbyssinia, and on the west side of the continent from Ashanti toSenegambia

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