88 Next to the Ground 



the first thing is to gnaw off, or pull up, the 

 low bushes over a space several yards across ; 

 next the leaves are rooted up, and inward, in 

 a ring. Then the bed-makers get inside the 

 ring, put their fore legs over the heaped leaves, 

 and deftly draw them back, until the ring nar- 

 rows to a pyramid. A suckling sow plumps 

 down right in the middle of her bed, whirls 

 round and round until she has snugly hollowed 

 a cup big enough to lie in, then calls in her 

 litter, bestows them beside and slightly under- 

 neath her, and with her nose tosses leaves 

 lightly over them, as well as over her own 

 back and shoulders. When at last she lies 

 down she is invisible, under a leaf coverlet six 

 inches thick. Until she begins to think of 

 weaning her pigs, she fights everything else 

 away from the bed. In the hottest summer 

 weather she makes for herself and her children 

 a bed of fresh clean earth, light and dry, but 

 not dusty. She will wallow all day in mud, 

 and keep her piggies beside her, but will not 

 sleep in it. 



Hogs are wonderfully sensitive to weather 

 influences. They squeal and run restlessly 

 about hours in advance of a storm. They 

 have also some mysterious faculty which warns 

 of coming cold, hardly waiting to feed some- 

 times before they rush to work, thickening 

 their beds, and heaping them anew. They 



