AN EXTRAORDINARY ANIMAL.

Clutha Leader, Volume IV, Issue 189, 22 February 1878, Page 3

AN EXTRAORDINARY ANIMAL.

One of the most singular malformations in pigs was brought to our (Auckland Herald's)- office yesterday by Mr Sansom, of the Wh.au," in the shape of a creature which" formed the sixth of a litter, produced by Mr.,Sansouj's sow* It. is about the size of a new littered pig^ but displays a most remarkable likeness to a minature elephant. Its head is ot the form of au elephant's, and it has large pendulous ears like those of that animal, together with a trunk descending from the forehead, and perforated all the way up, differing- from the proboscis of an elephant in that it tei*minates riot with a fingerlike appendage, but in a shape somewhat like a sucker. The trunk is 1 fully an inch and a half long, and it is quite separate from the mouth. The mouth, too, is in form like to that of an elephant's, and presents, springing" from the lower jaw, a pair of small, well defined tusks, white and sharp. The creature has five eyes— -one a large-dull* looking orb under tke trunk in the centre of the forehead; two of the size of a pea, dark coloured, and without lustre, one on the right side ol the head, and one of a smaller size on the, left; side. The body is quite hairless, and the. general form is like that of an' elephants Its hoofs are cloven, but singularly long, and there is an embryo of a spur behind each. Altogether, this offsprings of a sow is one of the most remarkable examples of Nature's freaks we, everjsaw, and is well worthy of a full and complete description from the' pen of' some student of teratology, or the science of monstrous birth, in orbing we have seen in writing-son the subject describes anything like this where an animal is born resembling* in minattire quite a different- animal. Now-a-duys, by means of evolution, inquirers seek to solve manifold difficulties in .Nature's book, and perhaps someone will be able to show this is a case of going back to some original type, or going forward— 7 which we do not pretend to say. Mr Sansoni has presented the creature to the Auckland Museum, where it. will be carefully preserved, and probably|scientifioally described by Mr Oheeseinan, the curator.