68 THE HOG. 



We shall now proceed to notice some of the accounts given of 

 the swine found in various parts of the world, previous to entering 

 upon a consideration of the breeds peculiar to our own country. 



CHAPTER Y. 



r| Mi ff 



Swine in America In large towns Original breed Improved breed Swine in Canada In 

 Ohio In Mexico Hebrides In Columbia In the South Sea Islands Swine in Asia in Chi- 

 na and Japan Ceylon Hindustan Turkey and Arabia Swine in Africa Guinea New 

 Holland Caffraria Swine in Europe In Malta In Italy In Germany In Hungary In 

 Russia In Sweden In France Swine indigenous to the Channel Island* In Jersey In 

 Guernsey In Sark In Alderney The Isle of Man In the Hebrides In the Shetland Isles 

 In the Orkneys. 



AMERICA. 



THROUGHOUT the whole of this quarter of the globe swine appear 

 to abound. They are not, however, indigenous, but were doubtless 

 originally carried thither by the early English settlers, and the breed 

 thus introduced still may be distinguished by the traces they retain 

 of their parent stock ; but France, Spain, and, during the slave-trade, 

 Africa, have also combined to supply America with varieties of this 

 animal, so useful to the settler in the wilds and woods, and so much 

 esteemed throughout the whole of the country, as furnishing a 

 valuable article of food. 



" It appears that the American zoologists describe no fewer than 

 six species of the hog, some of them so entirely distinct in their 

 general habits and appearance as to prevent their ever breeding or 

 even associating together. Five of these species need only be re- 

 garded as objects of curiosity ; the sixth is the common wild hog of 

 the eastern continent, which we will describe, in order to illustrate 

 the difference between a good and a bad animal of the same variety; 

 they have long-peaked snouts, coarse heads, thin chests, narrow 

 shoulders, sharp backs, slab sides, meagre, diminutive hams, big 

 legs, clumped feet, the hide of a rhinoceros, the hair and bristles of 

 a porcupine, and as thick and shaggy as a bear's; they have no 

 capacity for digesting and concocting their food in the stomach for 

 nourishment ; there is nothing but offal, bones, rind, bristles, and 

 hair, with a narrow streak of gristle underneath, and a still narrower 

 line of lean, as tough and as rank as white leather their snouts 

 against every man, and every man's hand against them. No rea- 

 sonable fence can stop them, but, ever restive and uneasy, they rove 



