WILD BOAR.—Sus scrofa 
to eat the offal of their own species. The flesh of such ill-fed animals is always flabby 
and of ill-savour, and is also injurious to those by whom it is consumed. 
In this country, the Hog is used not only for food, but for the sake of the hide, which, 
when prepared after a peculiar fashion, is found to make the best leather for saddles. The 
bristles which are so largely used in the manufacture of brushes are almost exclusively 
imported from the Continent. 
Both to the Jews and the Mahometans the Hog is a forbidden article of diet, the 
latter prohibition being evidently in imitation of the former. In the Mosaical law the 
Hog is spoken of as an unclean animal that might not be eaten, although for what reason 
is not easy to ascertain, and the Rabbinical mandates which exercised such a potent sway 
over the people laid such a stress upon the interdict that they declared the animal itself 
to be a vile and foul beast, and pronounced a sentence of uncleanness against those who 
came in contact with a Hog or with anything which it had touched. It must be remarked, 
that the Egyptians, among whom the Hebrews had so long resided, held similar views of 
the Hog, and that might be in deference to their prejudices which they had contracted 
from their former masters. The Hebrews were taught in their law to hold the animal in 
the same light in which it had been regarded by those to whom they had been accustomed 
to look with reverence. By some persons it is thought that the flesh of the Hog is 
harmful to those who reside in hot countries; but even granting this to be the case—a 
matter which is by no means certain—it affords no clue to the cause why the Hog should 
have been held as a vile and unclean beast by the polished and learned Egyptians, 
who depicted so accurately the various animals found in their country, and employed 
them so largely in their symbolical literature. 
In its wild and domesticated state, the Hog is a most prolific animal, producing 
from eight to twelve pigs twice in each year, when it is in full vigour and in good 
health. Gilbert White records a sow which, when she died, was the parent of no 
less than three hundred pigs. 
We are rather apt to speak libellously of the Hog, and to ascribe to it qualities which 
are of our own creation. Although it is a large feeder, it really is not more gluttonous 
