PIGS. 
71 
among the habits of their species, produced a 
poetical effusion, which appeared in a monthly 
periodical about five or six and twenty years ago. 
If such were the cleanly habits of the swine in Tahiti 
at that time, they have degenerated very much 
since, for I have often seen them stretched out at 
ease in a miry slough, apparently as much at 
home as the greatest hog would be in such a 
situation, in any other part of the world. 
The swine now reared are large, and often well 
fed; they are never confined in sties, but range 
about in search of food. Those that feed in the 
heads of the valleys live chiefly upon fruit and 
roots, while those kept about the houses of the 
natives are fed occasionally with bread-fruit or 
cocoa-nuts. Unless well fed, they are very de¬ 
structive to the fences and the native gardens, 
and bite through a stick, one or two inches in 
diameter, with very little effort: sometimes the 
natives break their teeth, or put a kind of yoke upon 
them; which, in some of the islands of the Pacific, is 
rather a singular one. A circular piece, as large 
as a shilling or a half-crown, is cut out of each 
ear, and when the wound has healed, a single 
stick, eighteen inches or two feet long, is passed 
through the apertures. This wooden bar lies hori¬ 
zontally across the upper part of the pig’s head, 
and, coming in contact with the upright sticks of a 
fence, arrests his progress, even when he has suc¬ 
ceeded in forcing his head through. The flesh of the 
pig, though in general soft, rich, and sweet, is not 
so fine as English-fed pork, neither has it the pe¬ 
culiarly agreeable taste by which the latter is dis¬ 
tinguished. This is probably caused by the Tahitian 
swine feeding so much upon cocoa-nuts, and other 
sweet fruit. For the kind, however, native pork is 
