THE PIG 



"Oh, I know," cried Jules. "I have often seen 

 little rings of iron wire at the end of a pig's snout. 

 I did n't know what they were for, but now I see. If 

 the pig wants to dig, the iron wire is pressed against 

 the earth and bruises the raw flesh through which it 

 passes; and the pain forces the animal to stop." 



"Yes, that is the part played by the rings fixed 

 in the end of the snout." 



"And we see pigs, too, with a kind of large wooden 

 triangle around the neck," Emile put in. 



"As the pig is not very tractable and pays little 

 heed to the drover's voice, it is customary, when a 

 number of these animals are taken to the fields, to 

 put around their neck a large triangular wooden 

 collar, which prevents their getting through hedges 

 and overrunning the neighboring cultivated fields. 



"The pig's gluttony is proverbial. But let us be- 

 ware of reproaching it for this. Its voracious appe- 

 tite transmutes into savory meat and fat quantities 

 of refuse that none of the other domestic animals 

 would eat, and that would be wasted but for its in- 

 tervention; out of otherwise worthless scraps its 

 strong stomach, which turns at nothing, makes those 

 delectable articles of food so much enjoyed by all of 

 you when they appear in the form of sausages and 

 sausage-cakes. Let us not reproach it, either, for its 

 passionate love of mud, in which it wallows to reduce 

 its temperature. In that it simply inherits the hab- 

 its of its ancestor, the wild boar, which also delights 

 in the luxury of a mud-bath. Besides, it is more our 

 fault than the pig's taste. The pig likes a cold bath ; 



