NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 203 



powers forsook him, and he neglected those females to 

 whom before he was passionately attached, and from whom 

 no fences would restrain him. 



LETTER XXXIII. 



THE natural term of a hog's life is little known, and the 

 reason is plain because it is neither profitable nor 

 convenient to keep that turbulent animal to the full extent 

 of its time : however, my neighbour, a man of substance, 

 who had no occasion to study every little advantage to a 

 nicety, kept a half-bred bantam-sow, who was as thick as 

 she was long, and whose belly swept on the ground, till she 

 was advanced to her seventeenth year, at which period she 

 showed some tokens of age by the decay of her teeth and 

 the decline of her fertility. 



For about ten years this prolific mother produced two 

 litters in the year of about ten at a time, and once above 

 twenty at a litter ; but, as there were near double the 

 number of pigs to that of teats, many died. From long 

 experience in the world this female was grown very 

 sagacious and artful. When she found occasion to converse 

 with a boar she used to open all the intervening gates, and 

 march, by herself, up to a distant farm where one was kept ; 

 and when her purpose was served would return by the same 

 means. At the age of about fifteen her litters began to be 

 reduced to four or five; and such a litter she exhibited 

 when in her fatting-pen. She proved, when fat, good bacon, 

 juicy, and tender ; the rind, or sw*rd, was remarkably thin, 

 At a moderate computation she was allowed to have been 



