112 HOGS. 



common and scanty means which are open to 

 them. The cow and the sheep must have pas- 

 ture, and often costly care. Not so the poor 

 man's pig : with an unfailing appetite, he pos- 

 sesses incessant industry, and an universal 

 taste, or relish, for almost any substances, 

 animal or vegetable, of the select, or refuse 

 kind, which come under the cognizance of his 

 oblique, judicious eye, and his accurate and 

 laborious nose. 



If swine be a treasure to the cottager, they 

 can scarcely be less so to the farmer, whose 

 yard and stubble-fields are strewed with scat- 

 tered food, which, but for the hogs, would be 

 entirely lost. But these creatures, naturally 

 roaming, though herding together, do not con- 

 fine themselves to their owner's domain. In 

 the autumn they sometimes absent themselves 

 for weeks in the woods and thickets, in search 



