OF SELBORNE. 199 



tusks to be broken off. No sooner had the beast suffered 

 this injury than his powers forsook him, and he neglected 

 those females to whom before he was passionately attached, 

 and from whom no fences could restrain him. 



LETTER XXXIII. 



TO THE SAME. 



THE natural term of an hog's life is little known, and the 

 reason is plain because it is neither profitable nor convenient 

 to keep that turbulent animal to the full extent of it's time : 

 however, my neighbour, a man of substance, who had no 

 occasion to study every little advantage to a nicety, kept an 

 half bred Bantam-sow, who was as thick as she was long, 

 and whose belly swept on the ground till she was advanced 

 to her seventeenth year; at which period she shewed some 

 tokens of age by the decay of her teeth and the decline of her 

 fertility. 



For about ten years this prolific mother produced two 

 litters in the year of about ten at a time, and once above 

 twenty at a litter ; but, as there were near double the number 

 of pigs to that of teats many died. From long experience 

 in the world this female was grown very sagacious and artful : 

 when she found occasion to converse with a boar she used 

 to open all the intervening gates, and march, by herself, up 

 to a distant farm where one was kept ; and when her purpose 

 was served would return by the same means. At the age of 



t/ O 



about fifteen her litters began to be reduced to four or five ; 

 and such a litter she exhibited when in her fatting-pen. She 

 proved, when fat, good bacon, juicy, and tender ; the rind, or 

 sward, was remarkably thin. At a moderate computation she 

 was allowed to have been the fruitful parent of three hundred 

 pigs : a prodigious instance of fecundity in so large a qua- 

 druped! She was killed in spring 1775. 



I am, &c. 



