THE HOG. 
5 
HISTORY. 
Pachydermata, the Elephant, and we cannot fail to discover a law of beneficent design. This vast creature might be made to overrun 
the whole earth, were not his reproductive powers limited. The female brings forth only once in several years, and only one at a 
birth; and in the state of slavery, the male refuses to propagate at all, or does so with the utmost rarity and repugnance. An 
instinct which we may well call divine, seems to prompt him not to produce a progeny of slaves, whose strength and sagacity might 
administer to the most destructive passions of the human race. 
However grovelling and mean may appear the habits of the Hog, when reduced to the degradation of slavery, yet he is not 
destitute of sagacity, nor unsusceptible of attachment. WTen he lives in the cabin of the peasant, he loses much of his rudeness, 
suffers himself to be caressed, and recognises his protectors. Instances are known in which the Hog, for the purposes of exhibi¬ 
tion, has been brought to perform a number of feats, displaying a marvellous degree of docility. An instance, often quoted, of 
the degree of education of which he is susceptible, is the case of a Sow which came into the possession of Sir Henry Mildmay, 
which had been trained by a gamekeeper to point at game in the manner of a pointer. She was of the New Forest Breed, exquisite 
in her sense of smell, delighting in the sport, and nearly as steady as the best trained pointers. Colonel Thoknton had a Hog 
trained in like manner to point at snipes and other game. 
Intractable, rapacious, and selfish, as we are wont to esteem this animal, no mother is more tender of her young than the 
Sow, or more resolute in their defence. When the young are born, it is interesting to see the little creatures make their way to 
the head of the piostiate parent, to caress her and soothe her, as it were, for the pains they have caused her. Instances indeed 
do occur, though rarely, and never, it may be believed, in the state of nature, in which the mother devours her young as soon as 
they are born. We cannot account for an act so revolting, though it may not unreasonably be ascribed to pain and irritation 
aiising from the unnatural and confined situation in which the animal is kept, in filthy pens, and amid disturbance of every kind. 
It is known that the Sow is very irritable at this period, snapping at animals when they approach her; and that in proportion as she 
is tenderly treated, kept from annoyances, and supplied with proper sustenance, the hazard of the accident diminishes or ceases. 
Hogs are not insensible to natural affections: they are gregarious and social, warming one another with their bodies in cold wea- 
ther, and, when assembled in heids, manifesting the utmost sympathy for one another’s sufferings. Should one give signal of 
distress, all within hearing rush to his assistance: they gather round their comrade, and fiercely assail the largest animals that 
have injuied him. In Calabria, where they are grazed in herds, the keeper uses a kind of bagpipe, which, when at sunset they 
are to be driven homeward, instantly collects them from all parts. In certain villages there is a common swineherd: in the morn- 
ing, when he sounds his horn, all the pigs rush forth and follow him to the place of feeding j in the evening they return under his 
guidance, and when they enter the village each runs to his own sty without a mistake. In some of the southern United States, it 
is usual to turn the pigs into the woods, but to collect them together once a-week, by giving them salt and maize, or other favourite 
food. At the very hour they are to receive their weekly present, they reassemble from all parts, without a straggler. They have 
the sagacity always to discover the food that suits them, never being, like some other animals whose senses are blunted by do¬ 
mestication, poisoned by the plants they find in the wild state. Their exquisite senses of smell and touch direct them to earth-nuts 
and other roots, acorns, and the like, which are found buried in the ground. They are conscious of an impending storm, and carry 
straw, as if to shelter themselves from its violence. They are agitated when the wind blows violently, screaming and running to 
the sty for shelter, which has given rise to the singular saying of the country people, that u pigs see the wind.” The explana¬ 
tion is, that the Hog dreads wetness and cold, and is eminently sensitive to coming changes of the weather. 
The Hog is subject to remarkable changes of form and characters, according to the situations in which he is placed. When 
these characters assume a certain degree of permanence, a breed or variety is formed; and there is none of the domestic animals 
which more easily receives the characters we desire to impress upon it. This arises from its rapid powers of increase, and the 
constancy with which the characters of the parents are reproduced in the progeny. There is no kind of live-stock that can be 
so easily improved by the breeder, and so quickly rendered suited to the purposes required; and the same characters of external 
form indicate in the Hog a disposition to arrive at early maturity of muscle and fat, as in the Ox and Sheep. The body is large 
in proportion to the limbs, or, in other words, the limbs are short in proportion to the body; the extremities are free from 
coarseness, the chest is broad, and the trunk round. Possessing these characters, the Hog never fails to arrive at earlier maturity, 
and with a smaller consumption of food, than when he possesses a different conformation. 
The Hog is an animal of vast importance, as affording the means of subsistence to the inhabitants of different countries. The 
quantity of food of this kind consumed in our own country is exceedingly great. The animals being reared at home for domestic 
use, the number brought to market, large as it is, does not give an idea of the quantity of pork produced and consumed. It is 
almost the only animal food which the peasants of many parts of the country ever touch; and, happily, the animal can be reared 
on the small scale as well as on the large, by the peasant at his cabin, as well as by the opulent farmer. His food, too, is what 
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