10 
THE HOG. 
WILD HOG. 
Norway, where they are allowed to roam at large, they are troublesome, and even dangerous to he met with, hut they remain toge¬ 
ther, and are easy to be distinguished from the parent race. In the North Highlands of Scotland the pigs are left almost in the 
state of nature, being suffered to graze on the hills like sheep, and to search undisturbed for their food ; yet these creatures, although 
they acquire a certain wild and grisly aspect, never reassume the true characters of the Wild Hog. They remain gregarious, the 
male continuing with the herd, and never betaking himself to his solitary lair: they are somewhat more wild and agile than the 
breeds of the lower country, but they never regain the swiftness, the strength, and the courage of the parent stock. 
Of the causes which produce this adaptation of an animal to a new condition, physiology does not afford an explanation 5 but 
there is one circumstance to which we may reasonably ascribe the most obvious of the changes which take place in the animal,— 
this is the difference in the nature and supplies of aliment. 
When the Hog is brought from the wild to the domestic state, food is supplied to him in larger quantity than he is enabled 
to procure in his natural condition. This produces an enlargement of certain parts of the body ; but the increase of size in one 
part of the body necessarily implies a corresponding modification in others. Thus, when the supplies of food are increased, the 
size of the stomach and intestinal canal, and consequently of the abdominal cavity, becomes extended, and this is indicated by a 
prolongation of the back, and enlargement of the capacity of the trunk. To support this increased volume, the limbs are placed 
at a greater lateral distance from one another. The tendency to secretion of fat increases in a greater proportion than the ten¬ 
dency to the production of muscle and bone. With these changes the animal becomes less fit for active motion, and the exercise 
of his powers of self-defence; and not only do those changes take place in the individual, but he communicates them to his pro¬ 
geny, and thus a form acquired becomes permanent by transmission in the race. 
And it is not in the Hog alone that we find a change of form and habits the result of changes in the quantity and nature of 
the food supplied. The like law extends to other quadrupeds, though producing the effect in different modes and degrees. 
Amongst ruminating animals, the Ox and the Sheep are subject to changes of form and character dependent upon the kind and 
abundance of aliment. With increased supplies of food the abdominal viscera become enlarged, and other parts partake of corre¬ 
sponding modification of form. The trunk becomes larger in all its dimensions, the limbs shorter and further apart, and the body 
being nearer the ground, the neck becomes more short; various muscles, from disuse, diminish in size, and the tendency to obesity 
increases. With the form of the animals, their power of active motion and strength diminish, and they acquire habits adapted to 
their changed condition. These new characters they communicate to their progeny, and thus races differing from those which in 
the state of nature would exist, are produced. 
Some of the carnivorous species could furnish us with examples equally striking as the herbivorous. And if we turn from 
quadrupeds to the feathered tribes, we shall find indubitable proofs of the power of a change of food to alter the form, and with it 
the whole habits of animals. The Domestic Goose is derived from the Wild of the same species, which inhabits the boundless 
marshes of northern latitudes. This noble bird visits us on the approach of the arctic winter, in those remarkable troops which all 
of us have beheld, cleaving the air like a wedge, often at a vast height, and sometimes recognised only by their shrill voices 
amongst the clouds. When the eggs of the wild species are obtained, and the young are supplied with food in unlimited quantity, 
the result is remarkable. The intestines, and with them the abdomen, become so much enlarged, that the animal nearly loses the 
power of flight, and the powerful muscles that enabled him, when in the wild state, to take such vast flights, become feeble from 
disuse, and his long wings are rendered unserviceable. The beautiful bird that outstripped the flight of the eagle, is now a cap¬ 
tive without a chain. A child will guide him to his resting place with a wand, and he is unable to raise himself by flight above 
the walls of the yard that confines him. He gives birth to a race of creatures as helpless and removed from the natural condition 
as he himself had become. 
The Wild Duck, too, affords us a similar example. This wary bird arrives in flocks from the vast morasses of the colder 
countries. Many pairs remain behind in the swamps, pools, and sedgy rivers of lower latitudes; but the greater number retrace 
their flight to the boundless regions, where they themselves have been hatched, and where they can rear their young in safety. If 
the eggs of this bird be taken, and the young be supplied with food in the manner usual in the domestic state, the animals will have 
changed the form, instincts, and habits of their race. Like the Goose, they lose the power of flight by the increased size of their 
abdomen, and the diminished power of their pectoral muscles ; and other parts of their body are altered to suit this conformation. 
All their habits change ; they lose the caution and sense of danger which in their native state they possessed. The male no longer 
retires with a single female to breed, but becomes polygamous, and his progeny lose the power and the will to regain the freedom 
of their race. 
Nor are the changes which thus occur in the form and characters of animals, from alteration in the conditions in which they are 
placed, of a slight or superficial kind. They are often as great in degree as those which are employed to distinguish species ; and 
