416 THE HOG. 



at a birth ; and in the state of slavery, the male refuses to 

 propagate at all, or does so with the utmost rarity and re- 

 pugnance. An instinct which we may well call divine, seems 

 to prompt him not to produce a progeny of slaves, whose 

 strength and sagacity might administer to the most destruc- 

 tive passions of the human race. 



The learned and ingenious Buffon, in his history of the 

 Hog, both in the reclaimed and wild state, describes it as 

 being the rudest of all quadrupeds, and as forming, even in 

 the conformation of its body, a kind of anomaly amongst 

 brutes. The imperfections of its form, says he, seem to 

 influence its dispositions ; all its habits are gross, all its 

 tastes unclean ; all its sensations reduce themselves to a 

 furious luxury and brutal gluttony, which makes it devour 

 every thing that presents itself, even its own progeny. Its 

 voracity seems to depend on the continual necessity it is under 

 of filling the capacity of its large stomach, and the gross- 

 ness of its appetites on the dulness of its senses of taste and 

 touch. The roughness of the hair, the hardness of the skin, 

 and thickness of the fat, render the animal little sensible to 

 blows, and mice have been seen to lodge in its back, and eat 

 its fat and skin, without its appearing to feel it. " Its body 

 is as unshapely as its physiognomy is stupid ; its neck is so 

 thick and short, that its head almost touches its shoulders : 

 its forelegs are so short, that it seems forced to lower its 

 head in order to support itself upon its feet, and all its body 

 seems as if it were about to fall forward. No ease appears 

 in its motions ; no suppleness in its limbs, which it scarcely 

 bends in order to carry itself in advance. Even in its mo- 

 ments of greatest fury, it has always a dull and constrained 

 attitude ; it strikes, thrusts, and tears with its tusks, but 

 always without agility and address, without the power of 

 being able to raise its head, or to bend its body like other 

 quadrupeds." These are the remarks of a writer whose elo- 

 quence never fails to charm, even when his arguments the 

 least satisfy the judgment. 



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