MAMMALS IN THE WATER.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]
Sin,—The writer of this very entertaining paper in the Spectator of March 13th alludes to the "myth" of pigs cutting their own throats while swimming. I certainly have never witnessed such a catastrophe, and though I seem to have a recollection of a tale in childhood, have never but once seen it in print,—and that somewhat indefinitely. Richard Jefferies in chap. 6 of "The Amateur Poacher," says of the keeper at the "Park ": — "He was a man of one tale—of a somewhat enigmatical character. He would ask a stranger if he had over heard of such-and-such a village where water set fire to a barn, ducks were drowned, and pigs cut their own throats, all in a single day. It seemed that some lime had been stored in the barn, when the brook rose, and flooded the place ; this slaked the lime and fired the straw, and so the barn. Something of the same kind happens occasionally on the river barges. The ducks were in a coop fastened down, so that they could not swim on the surface of the flood, which passed over and drowned them. The pigs were floated out of the sty, and in swimming their sharp-edged hoofs struck their fat jowls just behind the ear at every stroke till they cut into the artery, and so bled to death. Where he got this history from I do not know."
Now might not the condition of the pigs have some bearing on the possibility or non-possibility of this feat being per- formed P A lean and active animal might swim without doing himself such a fearful mischief, where the efforts of his highly-fed brother would have a fatal result, owing to the distention of his jowl with fat.—I am, Sir, &c.,
ARTHUR COOKE.
Foregate Place, Stafford, March 17th.
Previous page
