232 NATURAL HISTORY 



For about ton 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 num- 

 ber of pigs to that of teats, many died. From long expe- 

 rience 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 sward, was remarkably thin. 

 At a moderate computation, she was allowed to have been 

 the fruitful parent of 300 pigs a prodigious instance of 

 fecundity in so large a quadruped ! She was killed in 

 spring, 1775. 



LETTER XXXIV. 



TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BAKRINGTON. 



SELBORNE, May 9, 177G. 

 " admorunt ubera tigres." 



;E have remarked in a former letter how much 

 incongruous animals, in a lonely state, may 

 be attached to each other from a spirit of 

 sociality ; in this it may not be amiss to re- 

 count a different motive 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, and about the 

 same time his cat kittened, and the young were dispatched 

 and buried. The hare was soon lost, and supposed to be 

 gone the way of most fondlings, to be killed by some dog 

 or cat. However, in about a fortnight, as the master was 



