PIGS. 59 



earlier litter. The trap was artistically laid : on 

 cleanest straw were ranged the tiny Sybarites, all of 

 one size but of different ages, in hurdled pens, with 

 all the paraphernalia of a show. Business com- 

 menced, and an irrepressible, half-triumphant smile 

 played over the faces of the smocked attendants, 

 when the Professor happened to hesitate a moment 

 in his scrutiny. Yet a failure notwithstanding. One 

 thoughtful inspection more, and the man of science 

 rose as Antaeus from the straw. The Doctor was 

 himself again, the trick exploded, and the facts were 

 laid bare ; or rather, to parody Kelly's famous pro- 

 phecy, 'Twas Symonds first and the pig-fanciers 

 nowhere. Since the above was written, the dispute 

 has occurred respecting Lady Chesterfield's pen. I 

 cannot, I confess, lose my confidence in the medico. 

 If, however, he has temporarily just mistaken a root 

 for a square, it will work itself round in the problem. 

 There was clearly a mistake somewhere. But the 

 subject has been stranded : " there let him lay." 



A strange immunity in another respect does the 

 pig enjoy. I read in Pliny of his contemporary, the 

 Italian hog, that, 



11 Like to the Pontic monarch of old days, 

 He fed on poisons and they had no power, 

 But were a kind of nutriment." 



For a venomous lizard that infected the very apples 

 if it climbed the tree — the touch of whose foot only 

 was death in the meal-tub or well-water — this Nea- 

 politan porker crunched only with such an increasing 

 satisfactory appetite, as a first course of oysters or 



