THE BEECH. 



335 



of these unmanageable brutes to perfect obe- 

 dience and good government, is curious. The 

 first step the swineherd takes, is to investigate 

 some close, sheltered part of the forest, where 

 there is a conveniency of water, and plenty of 

 Oak or Beech mast. He fixes next on some 

 spreading tree, round the bole * of which he 

 wattles a slight circular fence of the dimensions 

 he wants, and, covering it roughly with boughs 

 and sods, he fills it plentifully with straw or fern. 



Having made this preparation, he collects his 

 colony among the farmers, with whom he com- 

 monly agrees for a shilling a head, and will get 

 together perhaps a herd of five or six hundred 

 hogs. Having driven them to their destined 

 habitation, he gives them a plentiful supper of 

 acorns or Beech-mast, which he had already 

 provided, sounding his horn during the repast. 

 He then turns them into the litter, where, after a 

 long journey and a hearty meal, they sleep de- 

 liciously. The next morning he lets them look a 

 little around them ; shows them the pool, or 

 stream, where they may occasionally drink — 

 leaves them to pick up the ofi'als of the last 

 night's meal — and, as the evening draws on, 

 gives them another plentiful repast under the 

 neighbouring trees, which rain acorns upon them 

 for an hour together at the sound of his horn. 

 He then sends them again to sleep. 



The following day he is probably at the 

 pains of procuring them another meal, with music 



* The hole or holl of a tree ; the body of a tree, as a Thorn-boll. 

 The term holling trees is applied to pollards whose heads and branches 

 are cut off, and only the bodies left. So in Exodus, ix. 31, The 

 flax was boiled," that is, had shot up into a stem. 



Z 



