MAMMALIA — HOG. 297 



THE HOG.i 



Of all quadrupeds, the hog appears the most rough and unpolished. His 

 voraciousness apparently depends on the continual necessity which he has 

 to fill the vast capaciousness of his stomach. It is the roughness of the 

 hair, the hardness of the skin, and the thickness of the fat, which render 

 these animals so insensible to blows. Mice have been known to lodge in 

 their backs, and eat their fat and their skin, without their seeming sensible 

 of it. Their other senses are good; and the huntsmen know that wild 

 boars both see, hear, and smell, at a great distance; since, in order to sur- 

 prise them, they Avait in silence during the night, and place themselves 

 under the wind, to prevent the boars perceiving their smell, of which they 

 are sensible at a great distance, and which always immediately makes thern 

 change their road. 



Their imperfection in the sense of touch is still more augmented by a 

 dis^temper which is called the measles, and which reitders them almost abso- 

 lutely insensible. This disorder proceeds in general from the coarseness of 

 their food ; for the wild boar, which usually lives on corji, fruits, acorns, and 

 roots, is not subject to this distemper, any more than the young pig whilst 

 it sucks. This is only to be prevented by keeping the domestic hog in 

 a clean stable, and giving him plenty of wholesome food ; by this means, 

 his flesh will become excellent to the taste, and the lard firm and brittle, 

 especially, if he be kept for a fortnight or three weeks before he is killed, 

 in a clean stable, without litter, giving him no other food than dry corn ; 

 for this purpose we should choose a swine of about a year old, full of flesh 

 and fat. 



Voracious and uncleanly as he is, the hog has some good qualities. If 

 one of his own kind utters a cry of distress, every hog within hearing in- 

 stantly hurries to his assistance. When teased by a dog, they have been 

 known to hem him round, and kill him. If a male and female are brought 

 up together when young, and the latter loses her companion, she begins 

 immediately to decline, and probably dies of a broken heart. 



Nor is the hog wholly useless while living. In Minorca, he is frequently 

 yoked to the plough in conjunction with an ass, and he performs his task 

 in a workmanlike manner. In some parts of Italy and France, swine are 

 used to discover truffles, which grow a few inches under the surface of the 

 soil. A cord is tied round the animal's hind leg, he is conveyed to the field, 

 and wherever he stops to root with his nose, there the truffle is invariably 



' Sus scrofa, Lin. The genus Sus has four or six upper and six lower incisors ; two 

 upper and two lower canines ; fourteen upper and fourteen lower molars. Canines bent 

 upwards and laterally; molars tuberculous; lower incisors bent forward ; four toes on all 

 the feet, the two middle ones only touchins the crvound, armed with strong hoofs; nose 

 elonsated, cartilaginous ; bodv covered with bristles; twelve teats. 



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