734 



sus. 



a formidable appearance. The eyes are very small, 

 but expressive when the animal is tranquil, and they 

 are fiery and glaring when it is irritated ; the ears 

 are not nearly so large as they are in many of the 

 domesticated breeds, but they admit of a very con- 

 siderable degree of motion. They come to what 

 may be considered as their most active size in about 

 five or six years, but they live to the age of almost 

 thirty, and increase in size and in passive strength 

 and daring hardihood of character during the greater 

 part of that time. They, however, become fertile 

 long before they reach their full size, for they are 

 capable of breeding in their second year. The litters 

 of these immature ones are, however, not numerous. 

 In the wild forests of Europe the rutting time is in 

 January or February, and commences, though more 

 rarely, as early as November. Previous to this 

 time, which is the season of abundance with them, 

 as the fruits of the trees are on the ground, they 

 assemble in small herds ; but when the rutting time 

 comes on they separate. Though they are mono- 

 gamous, the males, or boars, which are exceedingly 

 fierce at that season, often fight desperate battles of 

 gallantry ; and it is said that the largest and most 

 powerful males fight to obtain the largest females, 

 which, on their part, are also more favourable to the 

 powerful and victorious than to the feeble and 

 vanquished. In this way, the female which no one 

 courts is left for the male which is not able to obtain 

 another in the strife. There is, however, said to be 

 something like a principle of honour in these battles ; 

 for, if a female shows a very strong and determined 

 attachment to one particular male, the rest do not 

 forcibly interfere, but allow him to lead her off quietly 

 to the nuptial bower. Something similar to this 

 appears in many other animals, and there appears to 

 be a sort of natural congruuy or propriety in it. 

 We have said that the litters of the ones which have 

 not attained their full size are not so numerous as 

 those of the mature age ; this is true, whether both 

 parents, or only one, are immature ; and in the case 

 of one, it matters not much whether that one is the 

 male or the female. Thus, in the case of an unequal 

 match, there is a waste of the productive energy ; 

 and as this energy is the grand result to which all 

 the developments of animals lead, nature takes every 

 means for regulating it with proper economy. 



When all the hostile encounters, and other parts of 

 the pairing are settled, which have no inconsiderable 

 resemblance to the pairings of some birds, the whole 

 separate, each pair betaking themselves to the deep 

 cover of a thicket, where they remain about thirty 

 days. The period of gestation is four months, and 

 the litter consists of from four to ten pigs, according 

 to the age and vigour of the parents. When they 

 are produced, the female hides them very carefully 

 from the male, as, if he were to find them, he would 

 eat them up. Indeed, when the season is severe, 

 and provision is not easily obtained, the female does 

 not scruple to eat her own offspring. This some- 

 times happens in the case of the domestic sow j and 

 Shakspeare mentions, among the fitting subjects that 

 go to the composition of a diabolic mess, 

 " Sow that hath her farrow eaten," 



which he of course borrowed from the then popular 

 notions of what subjects were fit for the purposes of 

 witchcraft. That there should be hostility to the 

 young on the part of the boar is rather in accordance 



with a somewhat common habit among animals ; for 

 in those species, whether mammalia or birds, in which 

 the males fight battles of gallantry, they never take 

 any share in providing for the young, always treat 

 them harshly, and not unfrequeiitly kill, if they do 

 not eat them. There is even a shade of the analogy 

 traceable among the human race ; and we might, 

 upon very sound physiological principles, assume 

 that such might be the case ; for it is to be under- 

 stood that battles of gallantry among men, whatever 

 name they may get, and whatever aspect they may 

 put on, are in reality animal matters, not intellectual 

 ones ; and in the case of mothers, too, it very fre- 

 quently happens that those who display the warmest 

 animal affections for their children are the most prone 

 to destroy them, both in an intellectual and an econo- 

 mical point of view. There is thus a lesson of prac- 

 tical instruction to ourselves to be drawn from the 

 study of almost any animal to which we can refer ; 

 and this we might expect, as the animal is so much 

 mixed up in all that we derive or do with reference 

 to the present world. 



If the young are protected, and the mother finds 

 the necessary supply of food in the early stage (for it 

 is in the very early stage that there is danger from 

 her), she becomes a most attentive mother. The 

 period of suckling is of the same length with that of 

 gestation ; but the protection of the mother is con- 

 tinued for a long time after this ; and no parent can 

 be more bold in the defence of an offspring, and no 

 offspring more attached to a parent. 



There is something more curious even than this in 

 the economy of the wild hogs, something very closely 

 resembling the founding of a sort of clan ; so tha't 

 those persons who are fond of tracing what they call 

 sagacity or intelligence in animals may find it here. 

 The litter are not only attached to the mother, but to 

 each other; and this attachment does not cease when 

 they are no longer dependent on the mother's pro- 

 tection, but after another litter has been produced ; 

 nay, it is communicated from litter to litter, till the 

 produce of the same mother form a little colony, the 

 members of which appear capable of recognising each 

 other, even after they have been separated for a time 

 from physiological causes. It is possible that most 

 herds of social animals are originally formed on this 

 principle, though the attachment has not been so 

 well observed in most of the others as in these. 



But this has a limit, and it is easy to see that it 

 should ; because, with the great fertility of the ani- 

 mals, and the small disposition that they have to 

 range far from the same place, they would in no very 

 great length of time become so numerous as that no 

 pasture could maintain them, and thus the free and 

 average operation of the principle of reproduction 

 would in time effect the destruction of the race, the 

 more especially when it is considered that the natural 

 period of life in them is thirty years. But nature is 

 never without a resource, exactly adequate to the 

 necessity that there is for it ; and though while we, 

 in the exercise of our limited powers, in general see 

 only one part of the case, and so see it as though it 

 would in the end lead to destruction, yet there is 

 always another power which comes in at its appointed 

 time, and works for preservation. This holds in every 

 case, although many of the greater changes appear 

 to be connected with wide extending ruin. 



In the case of the wild hogs, the correcting prin- 

 ciple that limits the numbers of the individual herd, 



