THE HOG. 415 



peans are found. Neither was he found in New Holland, 

 though now he has been transported thither, and finds a 

 habitat as suitable as any other on the globe. This univer- 

 sal diffusion seems due to the remarkable fecundity of the 

 animal in the domestic state, his easy maintenance, and his 

 adaptation to almost every situation. Even in the wild state 

 the female is prolific, but this faculty increases in a remark- 

 able degree in the state of slavery. The Sow frequently 

 gives birth to fifteen, to twenty, nay, sometimes she has been 

 known to produce upwards of thirty at a birth, although she 

 has not mammae to nourish such a number. She is compa- 

 ratively a long-lived animal, living to the age of twenty 

 years or more : she is ready to receive the male before she 

 has reached the age of twelve months, and of giving birth to 

 two litters in the year, or even to five litters in two years. 

 M. Vauban, the great military engineer, made, long ago, a 

 calculation of the possible produce of an ordinary Sow in 

 ten years. He allows twelve at a litter, and excludes from 

 his calculation the males, which yet would be as numerous 

 as the females. The result is, that, in eleven years, which 

 is equivalent to ten generations, there would be 6,434,838 

 pigs, or taking round numbers, six millions of pigs, which 

 is about the number existing in France. Were we to ex- 

 tend our calculation, says M. Vauban, to the twelfth gene- 

 ration, we should find as great a number to result as all 

 Europe is capable of maintaining ; and were the calculation 

 extended to the sixteenth generation, there would be as great 

 a number as would people the whole globe. "With powers of 

 production so great as this animal possesses, it will appear 

 that, let the consumption be ever so great, the largest means 

 will exist of supplying it. Let us contrast this vast power 

 of increase with that of another of the Pachydermata, the 

 Elephant, and we cannot fail to discover a law of beneficent 

 design. This vast creature might be made to overrun the 

 whole earth, were not his reproductive powers limited. The 

 female brings forth only once in several years, and only one 



