From J. E. Gray 13 February 1868
BM
13 Feb 1868
My Dear Darwin
Thanks for sending the Narthusius1 I have packed it ready for your man when he calls next Thursday—2 It agrees with my own observations that all Domestic Pigs have short head & concave forehead nose keeled on sides—3 He evidently has not seen pliciceps in which these characters are carried to a greater extent4 I said in describing of it in the Proceedings Z. S that the Berkshire hog was nearest to it5
The Berkshire pig was known to the Greeks Newton Brought three statue of a Pig like the Berkshire from Cnidus, they have curly tail & male & female have a crop of bristles that is not the way the sculptors represents bristle generally they name them “Pig Sacred to Persephone Temenos of Demeter”. the statues are in the BM.6
The Assyrian slabs in BM represent the flat sided pig perhaps Wild among the Reeds, with young Pig— Representing Sennacerib superintending the movements of a gigantic Bull.7
Ever Yours sincerely | J E Gray
You will find my observations on the African & Indian Cats in the P. Z Soc for 1867 entirely founded on the examination of the specimens in BM, There are two Papers one on their skulls, the other on their skins—& there is an appendix to the latter on some India Cats left out by the Printer.8
Footnotes
Bibliography
Bartlett, Abraham Dee. 1861. Remarks on the Japanese masked pig. [Read 11 June 1861.] Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London (1861): 263–4.
Freeman, Richard Broke. 1978. Charles Darwin: a companion. Folkestone, Kent: William Dawson & Sons. Hamden, Conn.: Archon Books, Shoe String Press.
Nathusius, Hermann von. 1864. Vorstudien für Geschichte und Zucht der Hausthiere zunächst am Schweineschädel. 1 vol. and atlas. Berlin: Wiegandt und Hempel.
ODNB: Oxford dictionary of national biography: from the earliest times to the year 2000. (Revised edition.) Edited by H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison. 60 vols. and index. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2004.
Oxford companion to classical literature. 1997. 2d ed. Edited by M. C. Howatson. \Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Summary
JEG and Nathusius on pigs.
Reference to JEG’s paper on African and Indian cats [Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond. (1867): 258–77, 874–6].
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-5875
- From
- John Edward Gray
- To
- Charles Robert Darwin
- Sent from
- British Museum
- Source of text
- DAR 165: 215
- Physical description
- ALS 4pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 5875,” accessed on 25 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-5875.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 16