232 
NATURAL HISTORY 
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 num- 
ber of pigs to that of teats, many died. From long expe- 
rience in the world, this female was grown very sagacious 
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 300 pigs — a prodigious instance of 
fecundity in so large a quadruped ! She was killed in 
spring, 1775. 
LETTER XXXIV. 
TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON. 
Selborne, May 9, 1776. 
" admorunt ubera tigres." 
E have remarked in a former letter how much 
incongruous animals, in a lonely state, may 
be attached to each other from a spirit of 
sociality ; in this it may not be amiss to re- 
count a difi'erent motive which has been 
known to create as strange a fondness. 
My friend had a little helpless leveret brought to him, 
which the servants fed with milk in a spoon, and about the 
same time his cat kittened, and the young were dispatched 
and buried. The hare was soon lost, and supposed to be 
gone the way of most fondlings, — to be killed by some dog 
or cat. However, in about a fortnight, as the master was 
