SWINE. 



95 



V. 



SWINE, 



Where oft the swine, from ambush warm and dry, 

 Bolt out and scamper headlong to their sty. Bloomjltld. 



I.-NATUKAL HISTOET. 



HE hog (Suidcs sus of Linnaeus), according to 

 Cuvier, belongs to "the class Mammalia, order 

 Pachydermata, genus Suidce or sus." 



Professor Low remarks, that " the hog is sub- 

 ject to remarkable changes of form and charac- 

 ters, according to the situation in which he is placed. When 

 these characters assume a certain degree of permanence, a 

 breed or variety is formed ; and there is no one of the domes- 

 tic animals which more easily receives the characters we de- 

 sire to impress upon it. This arises from its rapid powers of 

 increase, and the constancy with which the characters of the 

 parents are reproduced in the progeny. 



There is no kind of livestock that can be so easily im- 

 proved by the breeder and so quickly rendered suited to the 

 purposes required; and the same characters of external form 

 indicate in the hog a disposition to arrive at early maturity of 

 muscle and fat as in the ox and the sheep. The body is long in 

 proportion to the limbs, or, in other words, the limbs are short 

 in proportion to the body ; the extremities are free from coarse- 

 ness; the chest is broad and the trunk round. Possessing 

 these characteristics, the hog never fails to arrive at early ma- 

 turity, and with a smaller consumption of food than when he 

 possesses a different conformation." 



The wild boar, which was undoubtedly the progenitor of all 

 the European varieties, and also of the Chinese breed, was for- 



