system—a tyrant that can bear no one's
presence but his own. The poor pig thus
treated, gorges himself, sleeps, eats again,
sleeps, awakes in a fright, screams, struggles
against the blue apron, screams fainter and
fainter, turns up the whites of his little eyes,
and dies!"

But though the progress of modern civilisation
may not have advanced far into pigdom,
yet do we occasionally hear of shrewd
knacks and habits acquired by these animals.
The jungle-hog of India, we are told, makes
his bed of meadow-grass; this he cuts down
with his teeth, as if it were done with a
scythe, and piles it up into oblong heaps, as
regularly as thatch on houses. When he has
thus collected a large heap, he creeps under it
to rest: when he leaves it he creeps out at the
other end without disturbing it. He remains
quite invisible when in his house, but leaves a
loop-hole through which to have an eye upon
his enemies. In Minorca an ass and a hog
are occasionally yoked together to a plough;
and Pennant speaks of a Morayshire farmer
who used a cow, a sow, and two horses, to form
his team. In Hertfordshire a farmer once went
to St. Alban's market in a small cart drawn
by four hogs; and a hog has been known to
submit to the saddle and bridle. In some
parts of Italy, pigs are employed to hunt for
truffles. A string is tied to the animal's leg,
and he is led into the fields where truffles
grow: wherever he stops, smells the soil, and
roots up the ground, there truffles will be
found.

In connexion with field-sports, the boar of
olden time occurs naturally to the mind of
modern readers. Of the legends, the histories, the
songs, the pictures relating to boar-hunting,
every one knows something; and that sport
is not even now extinct. We have few or no
wild boars in England, but many parts of the
Continent abound in them. The Prince of
Conde kept dogs for boar-hunting down to
1830; and more than one " noble lord " are
reported to have enjoyed this sport in the south
of France in recent times. If it be true that the
boar's head, which graces the dinner-table at
Queen's College, Oxford, on Christmas day, is
"neatly carved in wood," it argues a sad
scarcity of real boars' heads. But if the
sportsman does not now act against the pig,
he occasionally acts with him. It is related
that the gamekeeper of the late Sir H. St.
John Mildmay, while pursuing his avocations
in the New Forest, conceived the idea of
educating a pigling to fill the part of a pointer
dog. The pig used to accompany him to a
considerable distance from home; and he
enticed her still further by the bribe of a kind
of pudding made of barley meal, which he
carried in one of his pockets; his other
pocket was filled with stones, to throw at the
pig whenever she misbehaved. She proved
tolerably tractable; and he soon taught her
what he wished, by this system of rewards
and punishments. She became an excellent
pointer. One fault, alas! she had: she was
an epicure in delicate young lamb; and ate,
without cooking, sundry lambs which became
her prey in the farm-yard. She was lowered
from her dignity as a pointer, and became --
bacon.

It must be confessed, however, that any
enumeration of the uses of the living pig to
man will necessarily be a short one; and we
will, therefore, trace him through the ordeal
by which he is made a valuable dead pig.

The rearing of pigs for the market has
become a much more carefully studied
occupation than in former days. It was once
deemed that any refuse would suffice for any
pig; but pig-breeders have become philosophers,
knowing that the quality of pork depends
on the food of the animal. Certain it
is that pigs are nearly as omnivorous as the
bipeds who own and kill them. They will
eat all kinds of clover, cabbage, vetches,
lucern; all such roots as potatoes, carrots,
turnips, parsneps; all the varieties of corn,
beans, and peas; linseed meal and oil-cake;
beech-mast and acorns; apples and other
fruits (if they can get them); the grains and
wash from distilleries and breweries (many a
pig has been drunk with distillery refuse);
the refuse from starch-works and from corn-
mills; the potato peelings, and the cabbage-
cuttings, and all the odds and ends which
constitute kitchen refuse; the more dainty
butter-milk and skim-milk, and whey, which
give the choice niceties of " dairy-fed pork"
-- all are welcome to the pig. According to
the purposes for which the animals are destined,
so is the food chosen by those who
make it a matter of business. If they are to
be sucking-pigs, to be killed at two or three
weeks old, their quality will be affected by
the food which the mother eats; if they are
to rise to the dignity of porkers, they are fed
carefully to meet the palates of London
buyers, who are mightily particular in their
fresh pork; if they are to become bacon-hogs,
they undergo a certain kind of fattening after
they get beyond the age of porkers.

In respect to the prize pigs, which lead
such a life of fame every December, they are
fed on barley-meal, steamed potatoes, Indian
corn, skim-milk, pea-meal, and various other
things which pigs do love; and the rearers
try to discover which fodder has the greatest
fat-producing qualities. Thus we find that,
at the Christmas Cattle Show in 1851, as at
its predecessors, the medals and the purses of
sovereigns were awarded to the owners and
breeders of fat pigs, who were able to show
what kind of food, and for what length of
time, had produced the roly-poly state of the
animals. One had revelled in buck-wheat,
barley-meal, peas, and milk-and-water;
another in barley-meal, potatoes, and whey;
and so on. As to the appearance of these pets
-- trying to stand and to look out of their
eyes, but unable to do either -- most persons
are familiar with it.