1 82 The Natural History 



LETTER XXXIII 



TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON 



The natural term of an hog's life is little known, and 

 the reason is plain — because it is neither profitable nor 

 convenient to keep that turbulent animal to the full 

 extent of its time : however, my neighbour, a man of 

 substance, who had no occasion to study every little 

 advantage to a nicety, kept an half-bred Bantam sow, 

 who was as thick as she was long, and whose belly swept 

 on the ground, till she was advanced to her seventeenth 

 year ; at which period she showed some tokens of age by 

 the decay of her teeth and the decline of her fertility. 



For about ten years this prolific mother produced two 

 litters in the year of about ten at a time, and once above 

 twenty at a litter ; but, as there were near double the 

 number of pigs to that of teats many died. From long 

 experience in the world this female was grown very 

 sagacious and artful : — when she found occasion to 

 converse 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 tlie 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 remarkably 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, etc 



