At the age of
about fifteen her litters began to be reduced to four or five; and
such a litter she exhibited when in her fatting-pen. She proved,
when fat, good bacon, juicy, and tender; the rind, or sward, was
remarkably thin. At a moderate computation she was allowed to
have been the fruitful parent of three hundred pigs: a prodigious
instance of fecundity in so large a quadruped! She was killed in
spring 1775.
I am, etc.
Letter XXXIV
To The Honourable Daines Barrington
Selborne, May 9, 1776.
Dear Sir,
... admorunt ubera tigres.
We have remarked in a former letter how much incongruous
animals, in a lonely state, may be attached to each other from a
spirit of sociality; in this it may not be amiss to recount a different
motive which has been known to create as strange a fondness.
My friend had a little helpless leveret brought to him, which the
servants fed with milk in a spoon, and about the same time his cat
kittened and the young were dispatched and buried. The hare was
soon lost, and supposed to be gone the way of most foundlings, to
be killed by some dog or cat.
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