504 



UXGULATA. 



swam a distance of five miles ; and it is said that if they had belonged to 

 a wild family, they would have swum to a much greater distance. 



The Domestic Pig may be said to be a manufactured production, a 

 veritable monster when compared with the primitive pig. The Hog is 

 either kept in a stye continually, or allowed, as in districts where acorns, 

 chestnuts, and the like abound, to run about during some portion of the 

 year. When the animals are confined, the styes ought to be kept clean 

 and warm. The fecundity of this animal is remarkable. A sow usually 

 has two litters a year, each of from twelve to fifteen ; a Leicestershire 

 sow is reported to have given birth to three hundred and fifty-five young 

 ones in twenty litters, and the famous military engineer Vauban, when 

 discussing the provisioning of towns, calculated that one sow would 

 produce in ten generations 6,434,838 pigs. Yet the sow is often a very 

 bad mother, and constant watching is required to prevent her eating her 

 young as soon as they are born. 



The Berkshire Hog (Plate XXXVII) is one of the modern favorite 

 varieties. It is hardy, rapid of growth, and furnishes excellent pork, and 

 firm bacon. The Windsor and Leicester or Harrison-breed become in ten 

 or twelve months so fat, that the neck, face, and eyes almost disappear. 



Every part of the Hog, down to the bristles, is turned to some useful 

 purpose. The head-quarters of the pork-trade are Cincinnati and Chi- 

 cago, from which cities an enormous export goes on to all parts of 

 Europe, in addition to the supplies sent to our eastern cities. 



In a work intended for the popular eye, we may be allowed to diverge 

 from the natural history of the Hog and say a few words on a disease 

 respecting which alarm occasionally arises. This disease is caused by 

 the consumption of uncooked pork, and is called Trichiniasis. The 

 trichine is a minute worm, with difficulty visible to the naked eye, for it 

 has scarcely as large a diameter as a very fine hair, and in length is rarely 

 over two millimetres. It is found in the intestines, where it lives and 

 produces its young, which are at first in the grub or worm state. When 

 pork containing the trichine grubs is eaten by man, these pass into his 

 intestines. But this abode not suiting them, they cut their way out, and 

 ' get into the veins, when they are carried along with the blood in the cir- 

 culating torrent, and finally lodge in the muscles. This is the part of the 

 human form which is preferred by the trichine. It gnaws, separates, 

 and dissects the muscular and tendinous fibres, producing intolerable 

 pain. This disease has made the greatest ravages in the North of Ger- 



