368 ANIMALS OF THE 



The Hog, in a natural state, is found to feed 

 chiefly upon roots and vegetables ; it seldom at- 

 tacks any other animal, being content with such 

 provisions as it procures without danger. What- 

 ever animal happens to die in the forest, or is so 

 wounded that it can make no resistance, becomes 

 a prey to the hog, who seldom refuses animal 

 food, how putrid soever, although it is never at 

 the pains of taking or procuring it alive. For 

 this reason it seems a glutton rather by accident 

 than choice, content with vegetable food, and 

 only devouring flesh when pressed by necessity, 

 and when it happens to offer. Indeed, if we 

 behold the hog in its domestic state, it is the 

 most sordid and brutal animal in nature.* The 

 awkwardness of its form seems to influence its 

 appetites, and all its sensations are as gross as its 

 shapes are unsightly. It seems possessed only 

 of an insatiable desire of eating j and it seems to 

 make choice only of what other animals find the 

 most offensive. But we ought to consider, that 

 the hog with us is in an unnatural state, and that 

 it is in a manner compelled to feed in this filthy 

 manner, from wanting that proper nourishment 

 which it finds in the forest. When in a state of 

 wildness, it is of all other quadrupeds the most 

 delicate in the choice of what vegetable it shall 

 feed on, and rejects a greater number than any 

 of the rest. The cow, for instance, as we are as- 

 sured by Linnseus, eats two hundred and seventy- 

 six plants, and rejects two hundred and eighteen ; 



* BufTon, vol. ix. p. 14. 



