PIGS. 
33S 
the line. I tried this at least sixty times, always with the same 
result. Then I took a black linen thread, anil had no diffi- 
culty in killing them, as it was so small and black that they 
could not distinguish it. 
Pigs. 
There can be no doubt that pigs exhibit a degree of 
intelligence which falls short only of that of the most 
intelligent Carnivora. The tricks taught the so-called 
4 learned pigs 5 would alone suffice to show this ; while the 
marvellous skill with which swine sometimes open latches 
and fastenings of gates, &c., is only equalled by that of 
the cat. The following account of pigs in their wild 
state shows that they manifest the same kind of sagacious 
co-operation in facing an enemy as that which we have 
just seen to be manifested by the bison and the buffalo, 
although here it seems to be displayed in a manner still 
more organised : — 
Wild swine associate in herds and defend themselves in com- 
mon. Green relates that in the wilds of Vermont a person fell in 
with a large herd in a state of extraordinary restlessness ; they 
had formed a circle with their heads outwards, and the young 
ones placed in the middle. A wolf was using every artifice to 
snap one, and on his return he found the herd scattered, but the 
wolf was dead and completely ripped up. Sclimarda recounts 
an almost similar encounter between a herd of tame swine and 
a woif, which he witnessed on the military positions of Croatia. 
He says that the swine, seeing two wolves, formed themselves 
into a wedge, and approached the wolves slowly, grunting and 
erecting their bristles. One wolf fled, but the other leaped 
on to the trunk of a tree. As soon as the swine reached it 
they surrounded it with one accord, when, suddenly and instan- 
taneously, as the wolf attempted to leap over them, they got 
him down and destroyed him in a moment . 1 
In Bingley’s 6 Memoirs of British Quadrupeds ' (page 
452) there is an account drawn up at his request by 
Sir Henry Mildmay, concerning the docility of the pig. 
The Toomer brothers were King’s keepers in the New 
Forest, and they conceived the idea of training a sow to 
point; game. This they succeeded in doing within a fort- 
1 Thompson, Passions of Animals , p 308. 
