420 THE HOG. 



the purposes of exhibition, has been brought to perform a 

 number of feats, displaying a marvellous degree of docility. 

 An instance, often quoted, of the degree of education of which 

 he is susceptible, is the case of a Sow which came into the 

 possession of Sir Henry Mildmay, wliich had been trained by 

 a gamekeeper to point at game in the manner of a pointer. 

 She was of the New Forest Breed, exquisite in her sense of 

 smell, delighting in the sport, and nearly as steady as the 

 best trained pointers. Colonel Thornton had a Hog trained 

 in like manner to point at snipes and other game. 



Intractable, rapacious, and selfish, as we are wont to es- 

 teem this animal, no mother is more tender of her young 

 than the Sow, or more resolute in their defence. When the 

 young are born, it is interesting to see the little creatures 

 make their way to the head of the prostrate parent, to caress 

 her and soothe her, as it were, for the pains they have caused 

 her. Instances indeed do occur, though rarely, and never, it 

 may believed, in the state of nature, in which the mother de- 

 vours her young as soon as they are born. We cannot ac- 

 count for an act so revolting, though it may not unreasonably 

 be ascribed to pain and irritation, arising from the unnatural 

 and confined situation in which the animal is kept, in filthy 

 pens, and amid disturbance of every kind.. It is known that 

 the Sow is very irritable at this period, snapping at animals 

 when they approach her ; and that in proportion as she is ten- 

 derly treated, kept from annoyances, and supplied with proper 

 sustenance, the hazard of the accident diminishes or ceases. 

 Hogs are not insensible to natural affections : they are 

 gregarious and social, warming one another with their bodies 

 in cold weather ; and, when assembled in herds, manifesting 

 the utmost sympathy for one another's sufferings. Should 

 one give signal of distress, all within hearing rush to his as- 

 sistance : they gather round their comrade, and fiercely assail 

 the largest animals that have injured him. In Calabria, where 

 they are grazed in herds, the keeper uses a kind of bagpipe, 

 which, when at sunset they are to be driven homeward, in- 



