182 THE NATURAL HISTORY 



LETTER XXXIII 



TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON 



The natural term of an hog's life is little known, and the 

 reason is plain — because it is neither profitable nor con- 

 venient to keep that turbulent animal to the full extent of 

 its time : however, my neighbour, a man of substance, who 

 had no occasion to study every little advantage to a nicety, 

 kept an half bred Bantam-sow, who was as thick as she 

 was long, and whose belly swept on the ground, till she was 

 advanced to her seventeenth year ; at which period she 

 showed some tokens of age by the decay of her teeth and 

 the decline of her fertility. 



For about ten 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 

 number of pigs to that of teats many died. From long 

 experience in the world this female was grown very saga- 

 cious 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 three hundred pigs : a prodigious 

 instance of fecundity in so large a quadruped ! She was 

 killed in spring 1775. 



I am, etc. 



