A PIG'S FAT SAVES ITS LIFE. 81 



the bears found that the ripe berries, honey, and 

 nuts were a good change of diet for the summer, 

 which they could obtain with much less difficulty 

 than they could catch and kill a wild pig. 

 There was the danger too of the brave old boar 

 that guarded with desperate pluck the herd over 

 which he ruled with absolute command. 



Moreover, honey, nuts, and ripe berries were a 

 more suitable food in the summer for the bears 

 than a meal of pig flesh. 



You must have felt in hot weather a much 

 greater inclination to eat fruit, eggs, and vege- 

 tables than meat, and you are wise to carry out 

 your inclination, for in hot weather you do not 

 require food that creates too much warmth that 

 the hot weather supplies. When the weather gets 

 cold then it is that you feel inclined to eat meat, 

 because meat gives you heat which in cold 

 weather you require. 



You must have noticed how all animals in hot 

 weather turn eagerly to cool food. The horse, 

 w"hen in the stable, will eat greedily of the green 

 stuff that ought to be given him ; the cow will do 

 best on the young cooling grasses of the fresh 

 pastures ; and your pigs will do best on food that 

 does not heat their blood too much. 



So you see the wild pig had, during the 

 summer and autumn, every chance of getting fat, 

 but he had to get fat in a few weeks, and so a 



