280 The Natural History of Selborne 



many died. From long experience in the world this female was 

 grown very sagacious and artful. When she found occasion to con- 

 verse 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 

 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 remark- 

 ably 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 quadruped ! She was killed in spring 1775. 



I am, &c. 



