Unlike ordinary wild pigs, the babirusa produces uniformly coloured young.
I should be inclined to believe rather that these tusks were once useful, and were then worn Old Male Babirusa (Babirusa alfurus).
On this latter view we may regard the tusks of the male babirusa as examples of redundant development, analogous to that of the single pair of lower teeth in some of the beaked whales.
The native flora is rich, and teak, ebony and canari trees are especially abundant; the fauna, which is similarly varied, includes the babirusa, which occurs in this island only of the Moluccas.
Wild oxen of the Sunda race, not to be in any way confounded with the Malayan seladang or gaur, are rare, but the whole country swarms with wild swine, and the babirusa, a pig with curious horn-like tusks, is not uncommon.