216 TRESPASSING ANIMALS 



all they find which is edible, though this is an incident, 

 not a motive, of their trespass. Here we must tell a 

 story which should be added to the many moral tales 

 for children of which good and bad pigs are the heroes. 

 A litter of small pigs escaped from their yard by 

 squeezing through the gap left by a broken paling. 

 In the course of a delightful ramble they found much 

 food, of which they ate immoderately. Being dis- 

 covered, they fled for refuge to their sty ; but their 

 greediness had, for the time, so increased the girth of 

 their bodies, that only the smallest could squeeze back 

 again into the sty, and the rest, after making most 

 painful efforts to do so, were obliged to remain outside. 

 Older pigs trespass to obtain food, and are expert at 

 breaking through fences ; but their omnivorous taste 

 in food makes them, as a rule, contented to roam 

 round the farmyard and buildings. Cattle feeding 

 entirely on grass are much given to raiding neighbour- 

 ing fields in which the herbage is better than in their 

 own, and, in addition, often trespass from some innate 

 liking for the act. Their ingenuity and perseverance 

 in effecting an entry to the ground they propose to 

 trespass on is remarkable. They will wait for hours 

 and watch a gate until someone passes through it, when 

 they at once walk up and try it to see if the latch has 

 been left unfastened. As might be expected, Irish cows 

 have this 'land hunger' and trespassing instinct de- 



