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 killing 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 



