she found occasion to converse with a boar she used 

 to open all the intervening gates, and march, by her- 

 self, 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 

 sward, was remarkably thin. At a moderate com- 

 putation she was allowed to have been the fruitful 

 parent of three hundred pigs ; a prodigious instance 

 of fecundity in so large a quadruped ! She was 

 killed in spring 1775. 



LETTER LXXVI. 

 To THE Honourable Daines Barrington. 



" — — — — — — admorunt ubera tigres." 



" By tigers suckled." 



We have remarked in a former letter how much 

 incongruous animals, in a lonely state, may be at- 

 tached to each other from a spirit of sociality ; in 

 this it may not be amiss to recount a different mo- 

 tive which has been known to create as strange a 

 fondness. 



My friend had a little helpless leveret brought to 

 him, which the servants fed with milk in a spoon, 



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