Volume 1

Buffon's Natural history, abridged. Including the history of the elements, the earth, mountains, rivers, seas, winds, whirlwinds, waterspouts, volcanoes, earthquakes, man, quadrupeds, birds, fishes, shell-fish, lizards, serpents, insects, and vegetables / [George Louis Leclerc Buffon].

  • Buffon, Georges Louis Leclerc, comte de, 1707-1788.
Date:
1792
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Buffon's Natural history, abridged. Including the history of the elements, the earth, mountains, rivers, seas, winds, whirlwinds, waterspouts, volcanoes, earthquakes, man, quadrupeds, birds, fishes, shell-fish, lizards, serpents, insects, and vegetables / [George Louis Leclerc Buffon]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    475/486 (page 347)
    THE WILD BOAR OF CAPE 7ERD* 347 snuch longer, alinoft touching the ground j and it has no hair towards its extremity. The Wild Boar of Cape Verd, (See pi. XL.) There is another hog, or wild boar, at Cape Verd, which, by the number of its teeth, and enormous fize of its two tufks of the upper jaw, feems to be of a different breed, and, perhaps, of a different fpecies, from every other hog, and approaches nearer the Babirouffa. Thele tufks re- femble ivory horns, rather than teeth ; they are half a foot long, and five inches round at the bafe, and are crooked nearly like the horns of a bull. The Mexican Wolf has the fame figure, the fame appetites, and the fame habitudes, as the European or North American wolf; and every thing feems to prove them to be of one and the fame fpecies : its head, however, is larger, its neck thicker, and the tail not fo hairy ; above the mouth, there are fome thick briftles, but not fo rough as thofe of the hedge-hog ; the body is covered with greyifh hair, marked with fome white fpots; the head, which is of the lame colour as the body, is croffed with brown ftripes ; and the forehead is adorned with fallow-coloured fpots ; the ears are of a grey colour, like the head and body. There is a long fpot, of a fallow colour, on the neck; a fecond fpot, like the firft, on the breaft ; and a third on the belly. The flank is marked with tranfverfal lifts, from the back to the belly. The tail is grey, and marked with a fallow fpot on the middle ; the legs are ftriped, from top to bottom, of a grey and brown colour. This wolf, as we obferve, is the molt beautiful of the kind ; and its fur is greatly valued. The Alco, or Mexican Dog.] Befides the dogs, fays Fernandez, which the Spaniards have tranlported into America, we met with three other fpecies there, which re- femble ours, both in nature and manners, and which do not greatly differ from it in form. The firft, and the longeft of thefe American dogs, is that called Xoloigtcuint- li. What is particularly remarkable in thefe animals, is, their being without hair, and only covered with a foft, clofe fkin, marked with yellow and blue fpots. The fe- oond is clothed with hair, and, with refpedf to its fize, fufficiently refembles our little Malta dogs. It is marked with white, black and yellow; it is lingular and amufing .*} • H h 2 by