342 PLINY'S IfATPRAL HISTOET. [Book VIII 



happens when any one of them has eaten of a certain herb ^' 

 Their bite is very destructive to trees, and they make the 

 olive barren by licking it ;^^ for which reason they are not 

 sacrificed to Minerva. ^^ 



CHAP. 77. (51.) — THE HOG.®^ 



The period for coupling the hog lasts from the return of the 

 west wind to the vernal equinox ; the proper age commences 

 in the eighth month, indeed, in some places, in the fourth 

 even, and continues until the eighth year.^^ They bring forth 

 twice in the year, the time of gestation being four months ; 

 the number at a birth amounts to twenty even, but they can- 

 not rear so large a number. ^^ Nigidius informs us, that those 

 which are produced within ten days of the winter solstice are 

 born with teeth. One coupling is sufficient, but it is repeated, 

 on account of their exti'eme liability to abortion ; the remedy 

 for which is not to allow coupling the first time the female is 

 in heat, nor until its ears are flaccid and pendant. The males 

 do not generate after they are three years old. "When the 

 females become feeble from old age, they receive the males 

 lying down.^® It is not looked upon as anything portentous 

 when they eat their young. The young of the hog is con- 

 sidered in a state of purity for sacrifice when five days old,^'' the 

 lamb on the seventh day, and the calf on the thirtieth. Co- 

 runcanius asserts, that ruminant animals are not proper for 



9^ According to Hardouin, the herb referred to is the " erjiigium ;" proba- 

 bly the " eringo :" he cites various authorities in support of his opinion. — B. 



^^ This is repeated in B. xvii. c. 24. — B. 



_^- Varro, B. i. c. 2, says : " Hence it is that they sacrificed no goats to 

 Minerva, on account of the olive;" he then explains why the circumstance 

 of the goat injuring the olive-tree vras a reason for not offering it in sacri- 

 fice to Minerva, the patroness of this tree. Ovid, on the other hand, in 

 the Fasti, B. i. 1. 360, says that the goat was sacrificed to Bacchus, became 

 it gnawed the vine. 



93 We have an account of the hog in Yarro, B. ii. c. 4, from whom most 

 of Pliny's remarks are probably derived. — B. 



^* Varro, B. ii. c. 4, and Columella, B. vii. c. 9. fix upon the seventh 

 year. — B. 



'^ Varro, and Columella, ubi supra, recommend that the sow should not 

 be allowed to rear more than eight young ones at each bii-th. — B. 



96 Aristotle, Hist. Anim. B. v. c. 13.— B. 



97 Varro, ubi supra, says on the tenth day; Hardouin endeavours to prove 

 that the number in Varro was originally five. — B. 



