298 THE BOOK OF A NATURALIST 
pig would get up and coming towards me salute me 
with a friendly grunt. And I would pretend not to 
hear or see, for it made me sick to look at his pen 
in which he stood belly-deep in the fetid mire, and 
it made me ashamed to think that so intelligent 
and good-tempered an animal, so profitable to man, 
should be kept in such abominable conditions. Oh, 
poor beast, excuse me, but I’m in a hurry and have 
no time to return your greeting or even to look 
at you! 
In this village, as in most of the villages in all 
this agricultural and pastoral county of Wiltshire, 
there is a pig-club, and many of the cottagers keep 
a pig; they think and talk a great deal about their 
pigs, and have a grand pig-day gathering and 
dinner, with singing and even dancing to follow, 
once a year. And no wonder that this is so, con- 
sidering what they get out of the pig; yet in any 
village you will find it kept in this same unspeak- 
able condition. It is not from indolence nor 
because they take pleasure in seeing their pig 
unhappy before killmg him or sending him away 
to be killed, but because they cherish the belief 
that the filthier the state in which they keep their 
pig the better the pork will be! I have met even 
large prosperous farmers, many of them, who 
cling to this delusion. One can imagine a conversa- 
tion between one of these Wiltshire pig-keepers 
and a Danish farmer. ‘“ Yes,” the visitor would 
say, “we too had the same notion at one time, and 
thought it right to keep our pigs as you do; but 
