8o THOSE OTHER ANIMALS. 



The domestic pig, like the Britons when under the tutelage 

 of the Romans, would seem to have lost his warlike virtues, 

 were it not that there still lingers in his wicked little eye an 

 expression of savage defiance that speaks of a consciousness 

 of latent power ready to break into open war did he see 

 a prospect of emancipating himself from his degrading 

 slavery. 



There is a prejudice against the pig because he is 

 dirty. It is difficult to imagine a. more unreasonable one. 

 He is kept by man in a filthy stye, penned in within the 

 narrowest possible limits, and deprived of the decencies 

 of life. Under such circumstances, it is practically im- 

 possible that he could be otherwise than dirty. As in his 

 wild state he is protected by a coat of smooth bristles from 

 the dirt, nature has not bestowed upon him the long and 

 flexible tongue that enables the dog and cat tribe to clean 

 themselves. His short neck, too, renders it impossible for 

 him to reach the greater portion of his body. The fact 

 that his skin becomes dirty from the cdnditions under 

 which he lives would matter comparatively little, so far as 

 the estimation in which man holds him, were he covered 

 with hair. Man is tolerant of dirt when it is not brought 

 prominently under his notice, and it is the height of in- 

 justice to blame the pig for a hairlessness which is solely 

 due to the fact that he is kept in comparatively warm 

 quarters. The pig of Italy and Sardinia, which for the 

 greater portion of the year picks up his living in the forests 

 in a state of semi-wildness, is still well clothed with hair ; 

 and, indeed, it is only when kept entirely in confinement, as 

 with us, that he almost wholly loses his natural covering. 



The pig is an eminently vocal animal, and even in the 



