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58 We shall now proceed to notice some of the accounts given of the swine found in various parts of the world, previous to entering upon a consideration of the breeds peculiar to our own country.

 

the whole of this quarter of the globe swine appear to abound. They are not, however, indigenous, but were doubtless originally carried thither by the early English settlers, and the breed thus introduced still may be distinguished by the traces they retain of their parent stock; but France, Spain, and, during the slave-trade, Africa, have also combined to supply America with varieties of this animal, so useful to the settler in the wilds and woods, and so much esteemed throughout the whole of the country, as furnishing a valuable article of food.

"It appears that the American zoologists describe no fewer than six species of the hog, some of them so entirely distinct in their general habits and appearance as to prevent their ever breeding or even associating together. Five of these species need only be regarded as objects of curiosity; the sixth is the common wild hog of the eastern continent, which we will describe, in order to illustrate the difference between a good and a bad animal of the same variety; they have long-peaked snouts, coarse heads, thin chests, narrow shoulders, sharp backs, slab sides, meagre, diminutive hams, big legs, clumped feet, the hide of a rhinoceros, the hair and bristles of a porcupine, and as thick and shaggy as a bear's; they have no capacity for digesting and concocting their food in the stomach for nourishment; there is nothing but offal, bones, rind, bristles, and hair, with a narrow streak of gristle underneath, and a still narrower line of lean, as tough and as rank as white leather—their snouts against every man, and every man's hand against them. No reasonable fence can stop them, but, ever restive and uneasy, they rove