62 THE FORESTS OP ENGLAND. 



intimacy together, and in these friendly groups they 

 range the forest, returning home at night, but in different 

 parties, some earlier and some later, as they may have 

 been more or less fortunate in the pursuits of the day. 



" It sounds oddly to affirm the life of a hog to be envi- 

 able ; and yet there is something uncommonly pleasing in 

 the lives of these immigrants, something at least more 

 desirable than is to be found in the life of a hog, 

 Epicuri de grege; they seem themselves also to enjoy 

 their mode of life as one to them perfectly happy, going 

 about at their ease, and conversing with each other in 

 short, pithy, interrupted sentences, which are no doubt 

 expressive of their own enjoyment and their social feelings. 



" Besides the hogs thus led out in the mast season to 

 fatten, there are others, the property of forest-keepers, 

 which spend the whole year in such societies. When the 

 mast season is over, the indigeneous forest hog depends 

 chiefly for his livelihood on the roots of ferns, and he 

 would find this food very nourishing if he could have 

 it in abundance ; but he is obliged to procure it by so 

 laborious an operation that his meals are rarely accom- 

 panied with satiety. He continues, however, by great 

 industry, to obtain a tolerable subsistance throughout the 

 winter, except in frosty weather, when the ground resists 

 his delving snout. Then he must perish, if he do not in 

 some degree experience his master's care. As spring 

 advances, fresh grasses and salads of different kinds add 

 a variety to his bill of fare ; and as summer comes on he 

 finds juicy berries and grateful seeds, on which he lives 

 plentifully, till autumn returning brings with it the 

 extreme of abundance. 



" Besides these stationary hogs, there are others in some 

 of the more desolate parts of the forest which are bred wild, 

 and left to themselves, without any settled habitation ; 

 and as their owners are at no expense either in feeding 

 or tending them, they are content with the precarious 

 profit of such as they are able to retain." He adds : 



" Charles 1., I have heard, was at the expense of pro* 



