THE CATERPILLAR HUNTER. 
137 
or an earthworm. We felt inclined to box the dirty 
ears which stood out like jug handles from their shaven 
heads, but we smiled and gave them pice pour encourager 
les autres. 
Soon the whole juvenile population was abroad, hunting 
for any small thing that had life in it. Among them were 
a few Pigs of marked talent, who soon found out what 
we valued and explored the jungle in all directions for 
new and rare kinds of caterpillars, but the majority were 
afraid to go into the jungle at all lest panthers might eat 
them, so they wandered about the hedges round their 
fathers’ fields. Their intellects, too, never got beyond the 
argument that what you paid them for yesterday was the 
thing to look for to-day. It came to this, that we had to 
maintain a drove of several score, who spent their time in 
getting what we did not want, for the sake of the two or 
three who might get what we did want. So we began to 
pay at lower rates and to refuse altogether the commonest 
kinds. This led to the discovery that the brain of the Pig 
is not deficient, but only misapplied. Indeed, they dis- 
played a subtlety which was quite shocking in creatures so 
young. When an old hand brought some common cater- 
pillar for the twentieth time and found that it was refused, 
