418 THE HOG. 



fined to the larger rivers of Africa, where he passes his harm- 

 less life under the waters ; and the Tapir, a creature inter- 

 mediate between the Pig and the Elephant, merely lingers 

 in some of the forests of intertropical countries. But the 

 Hog, the contemned and misshapen glutton, the lowest of 

 brutes, and an anomaly amongst his fellows, survives the 

 revolutions of thousands of ages, and is reproduced in count- 

 less multitudes in every region of the earth. Let us consider 

 how far his form is imperfect, and how far he merits the 

 obloquy which is cast upon the habitudes and instincts with 

 which Nature has endowed him. 



The Hog, we have seen, is chiefly herbivorous in his state 

 of nature, or, at least, he does not prey upon animals that fly 

 from him, and much of his food consists of the roots of plants, 

 and the worms and larvae which he finds under ground. To 

 fit him for grubbing up this kind of food, the spinous pro- 

 cesses of the vertebrae of the neck and back are of great size 

 and strength, and large muscles attached to them and the 

 cranium, give a prodigious power to the neck, whose strength 

 h further increased by its shortness and little flexibility. 

 His fore limbs are short, and his face is prolonged, that, in 

 digging, he may reach below the plane of the surface on 

 which he stands ; his face is wedge-shaped, that it may the 

 better penetrate the ground, and terminates in a moveable 

 disc of strong cartilage, furnished largely with nerves to give 

 it sensibility. The eyes are small and sunk, that, when the 

 animal rushes through thick coverts of brushwood, they may 

 not be lacerated ; and, as a further defence to the eyes when 

 the animal rushes through woods, the tusks of the male curve 

 upwards before the orbits. The height and strength of his 

 haunch and limbs enable him to throw forward his body with 

 vast force; and his tusks are so placed that he can inflict despe- 

 rate wounds, by bringing them underneath his enemy, and tear- 

 ing or ripping him ; and his strong jaws enable him to seize ob- 

 jects with such force, that the bite of no animal is more danger- 

 ous. So far is he from manifesting want of address in his modes 



