94 History of Nature. [BOOK VIII. 



observed, that they more easily appease the Gods in Sacri- 

 fice, when they turn their Tails to the right rather than the 

 left. Swine will be fat in sixty Days ; and the rather if, be- 

 fore you set them up for feeding, they be kept fasting for 

 three Days. Of all other Animals they are the most brutish; 

 so that there goeth a witty saying of them, That their Life is 

 given them instead of Salt. 1 It is known that when Thieves 

 had driven away a Company of them, on hearing the Voice 

 'of the Swineherd they leaned all to one Side of the Vessel, 

 and sunk it, and then returned to their Keeper. Moreover, 

 the Hogs that lead the Herd are so well trained, that they 

 will of themselves go to the Swine Market-place, and from 

 thence Home again ; and the Wild ones have the Wit to 

 confound the Prints of their Feet, in the marshy Ground, 

 and to render their Flight more easy by first voiding their 

 Urine. 2 Sows also are spayed as Camels are ; but two Days 

 before, they are kept from Meat : then they hang them by 

 the Forelegs to make Incision into the Part; and by this 

 means they grow to Fat sooner. There is an Art also to 

 prepare the Liver of a Sow, as also of a Goose, 3 which was 

 the Invention of M. Apicius* by feeding them with dry 

 Figs, and when they have eaten till they are full, presently 

 to kill them with a Drink of Water, Wine, and Honey 

 (Mulsus). 5 There is not the Flesh of any other living Crea- 

 ture that affordeth more Matter for Gluttony : for there are 

 nearly fifty Sorts of Tastes, whereas others have but one 

 each. From hence came so many Books of Laws by the 



1 Cicero (" De Nat. Deorum," lib. ii.) tells us that this was the saying 

 of Chrysippus the philosopher ; intimating that the hog lived only to be 

 eaten, and that his life preserved his flesh from corruption, as salt would 

 do. Wern. Club. 



2 Lib. xxviii. 15. 3 Lib. x. 22. 



4 Lib. xix. 8. He is referred to again (B. x. c. 48), and at a time when 

 luxury in food was carried to a higher pitch than it had ever been in the 

 world before, he attracted attention by his enormous excess. Athenaeus 

 says, that Appion the grammarian wrote a treatise on the luxury of Api- 

 cius (B. vii. c. 12), quoted in the Notes to Bowyer's " Lilian," p. 1010. 

 Wern. Club. 



5 Lib. xxii. 24. 



