eedily devoured whatever was given him. He was one day left
alone in the court-yard for a few minutes; and, on the return of the
keeper, was found busily digging into the earth, where, notwithstanding
the cemented bricks of the pavement, he had made a very large hole, for
the purpose, as was afterwards conceived, of reaching a common sewer
that passed at a considerable depth below. When, after long
confinement, he was set at liberty, for a little while he was very gay,
and leaped about in an entertaining manner.

During Sparman's residence in Africa, he witnessed a curious method by
which the wild hogs protected their young, when pursued. The heads of
the females, which, at the commencement of the chase, had seemed of a
tolerable size, appeared, on a sudden, to have grown larger and more
shapeless than they were. This he found to have been occasioned by the
fact, that each of the old ones, during its flight, had taken up and
carried forward a young pig in its mouth; and this explained to him
another subject of surprise, which was, that all the pigs he had just
before been chasing with the old ones, had suddenly vanished.

THE DOMESTIC HOG.

The effect of domestication on the larger animals seems to be a
diminution of their powers of resistance or defence, no longer
necessary to their safety; and, on account of the want of free
exercise, an increase of size, attended by a relaxation of the fibres
and frame of the body. In this way, domestication has told with
considerable disadvantage on the hog. By the diminution of the size of
its tusks, and of its inclination or power to use them, it ceases to be
very formidable; and by luxurious habits, by overfeeding, and
indolence, the animal that fearlessly ranges the forest becomes one
whose sole delight it seems to be to rise to eat, and to lie down to
digest, and one whose external appearance, beyond that of any other
quadruped, testifies the gluttony of its disposition and of its
practices. The hog uses considerable selection in its vegetable diet,
but it compensates itself for the loss which its appetite might thus
sustain, by occasional recourse to animal food.

_Miscellaneous Anecdotes._--The following statement, made a few years
ago by a gentleman in Stanbridge, England, develops the carnivorous
propensities which the hog sometimes discovers, even in a condition of
perfect domestication,--the variety too of animals which it is inclined
to devour. "I had a pig," says