THE PIG

Our Humble Helpers: Familiar Talks on the Domestic Animals by Jean-Henri Fabre, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here. THE PIG

CHAPTER XXXIV. THE PIG

“There is every reason to believe that the domestic pig is descended from one or another of the numerous kinds of wild boar scattered over Asia—perhaps even from several of them. But the Asiatic wild boar bears so close a resemblance in shape and habits to the European that it will suffice for me to acquaint you with the latter in order to give you a correct idea of the former, and thus show you what the pig must have been in its primitive state.

“Though very numerous in early times throughout the forests of France, wild boars are from day to day diminishing in number with us, and are destined sooner or later to disappear altogether, as they have already disappeared from England, where they have now been exterminated to the last one, as is the case also with wolves. This complete extermination is explained by the situation of the country. England is entirely surrounded by the sea. If then the wolf and boar, hunted down as two undesirable neighbors, are at last entirely destroyed, the two species are forever annihilated in the island, since the sea interposes an impassable barrier against new arrivals.”

“That is perfectly clear,” assented Emile. “As soon as the last wolf and boar have been killed, the English, protected by the sea that surrounds them, are rid of these animals once for all.”

“If we could only rid ourselves of wolves like that!” Louis exclaimed. “Gladly would I see the skin of the last one stuffed with straw and paraded from farm to farm. I will say nothing of the boar, as I don’t know its manner of living.”

“The wild boar is also a formidable foe, not to flocks, but to cultivated fields, where it does great damage; besides, it is a brutal beast, rather dangerous to meet in the depths of a forest. In size and shape it closely resembles the common pig, the chief difference being in the boar’s coarse, blackish-red coat; its dorsal bristles, stiff and strong and standing up in anger in a horrible looking mane; its head, longer and more curved; its ears, smaller, more erect, and very mobile; its thick and shorter legs; and, finally, the great stockiness of the body as a whole. The eyes are small but not without expression, becoming quite fiery and ferocious in anger. The eye-teeth of each jaw project in a threatening manner beyond the lips, the lower ones being very long, with a backward curve, sharp edges, and pointed ends, the upper ones shorter and rubbing against the first in such a manner as to serve them as whetstones. From this peculiar function the upper tusks are in fact sometimes likened to grindstones and hence go by the name of grinders, while the lower tusks, terrible in combat, are called defenders. [326]With its powerful muzzle or snout the boar strikes and overthrows an opponent; with its sharp tusks it rips open and disembowels. The female, or sow, has no tusks, but her bite is most formidable; she accompanies it with a ferocious gnashing of the teeth and an infuriated stamping of the hoofs that would alone prove fatal to the trampled adversary. The cry of both consists in an obstreperous snort, a signal of alarm and surprise; but except in case of danger the brute is usually silent.

“The wild boar is fond of vast forests, in which it seeks the darkest and most retired spots where it will not be disturbed by man’s presence. In the daytime it lies in its retreat or lair amid the thickest of brushwood and bushes. In the neighborhood there is generally some sort of muddy pool where it wallows with delight. Toward nightfall it leaves its retreat in search of food. With its snout it plows the ground, always in a straight line, to unearth fleshy roots; it gathers the fruit fallen to the ground, the kernels of cereals, also chestnuts, beech-nuts, hazel-nuts, and acorns, especially the last, its favorite food. But a vegetable diet fails to satisfy its voracity. If it knows of a fish-pond, it plows up the banks to get the eels lurking in the mud; if it knows of a rabbit-burrow, it ransacks it by hollowing out a deep ditch and upturning stones with its powerful snout. It surprises the partridge on its nest and devours mother and brood; it crunches young rabbits in their snug retreat; it lays hold of young fawns in their sleep. Finally, if live prey is wanting, [327]it gorges itself with carrion. The whole night is passed in predatory raids of this sort, after which the beast regains its lair at the dawn of day.

“A wild sow’s litter numbers from three to eight little ones, sometimes called grice. They are white, with tawny or brown stripes running lengthwise. At the age of six months their hair becomes darker, a sort of dirty gray, and they outgrow the name of grice. When two years old their tusks begin to be dangerous, and at an age ranging from three to five years the animal attains its maximum size and strength and is entitled to the name of wild boar. After this, until twenty-five or thirty, the ordinary limit of its life, it is called an old boar or an old hermit, on account of the isolation in which it lives. Then the tusks become blunted and turn in toward the eyes.

“Boar-hunting is not without its dangers. If the boar finds itself hard pressed by the pack of hounds pursuing it, the animal takes refuge in some dense thicket of brambles and holly, and forces a passage through the thorny rampart where no other would dare to penetrate. Through the opening thus made rush the dogs, vying with one another in ardor and in barking. There are eight, twelve, fifteen of them; no matter, the boar awaits with firmness its numerous assailants. Backing up against a gnarled stump which protects it in the rear, it sharpens its tusks and works its drivelling jaws. Its mane stands erect on head and back; its little eyes, inflamed with fury, resemble two glowing coals. The boldest dogs [328]rush to seize it by the ears; it disperses them with a few vigorous blows from its snout, dealt with startling promptness. Some fall back with belly split open, from which the entrails protrude and catch on the bushes; others have a leg broken, a shoulder dislocated, or at least one or two flesh wounds. The dying stretch their legs in the last convulsions of agony, the wounded howl with pain, the least crippled beat a hasty retreat. But reinforcements arrive, bringing back the fugitives to the charge. Then, from the midst of the thicket, an indescribable uproar is heard. To the cries of the pack, howling, barking, and growling in various keys, and to the wild boar’s grunts of rage, are added the crashing sound of underbrush broken in the fierce scrimmage and the shrill notes of the magpies that have flown in all haste to the scene of tumult and from the surrounding tree-tops noisily discuss the event. Finally the boar emerges from the thicket and, drunk with carnage, takes its turn as pursuer. Woe then to the inexperienced hunter who loses his presence of mind or whose shot misses its mark: he might forfeit his life for his unwariness and lack of skill. But let us hope that a bullet, cleverly aimed between the beast’s eyes, will put an end to a battle that has already cost the lives of the best dogs in the pack.”

“I see that this is no tame rabbit-hunt,” said Jules. “If any one should come within reach of the fierce brute that the dogs are worrying, he would not, as they say, have much of a picnic.”[329]

“Nevertheless there are men of dauntless courage who go straight for the furious beast and plunge their hunting knife into its heart. But usually the thing is attended with less peril and with no such atrocious ripping-up of the dogs, a sport for the grand seigneurs. Ambushed in a safe place, the hunter awaits the boar and gives it a couple of bullets as it passes; and that is the end of it. If the attack is less spectacular, at least it spares the life of the dog and does not endanger man’s.”

“Then I give it preference,” Jules declared, “to that in which a whole pack might be killed. I don’t like that slaughter of dogs, with the boar’s tusks ripping them open there in the underbrush.”

“And what do they do with the beast after they have killed him?” asked Louis.

“It is a piece of game,” replied Uncle Paul, “that surpasses anything else to be found in our woods. Such a boar, old hermit-boar, as we call him, may weigh as much as two hundred kilograms. That is enough for a feast, I should hope, and all the more so as the flesh is excellent. The piece of honor is the head, the famous boar’s head.

“The Asiatic wild boar, from which the domestic pig descends, does not differ from ours in its habits; it is, like ours, a ferocious, coarse, vigorous, bold, voracious animal, a formidable creature to encounter in the dark woods. How has this intractable beast become the pig that we raise? By what care, what gentle treatment, has it been made to lose its ancient savagery? To these questions there is no further [330]answer than in the case of the dog and the ox. After centuries and centuries of domestication, the first steps in this process of redemption from the wild state have become lost in oblivion.

“Despite all its improvement the pig still remains a coarse animal, resembling the wild boar in more than one trait. Like the latter, it feeds on anything and everything; and even more than the latter is it addicted to gluttony. The perils attending its wild state no longer existing, it devotes itself unreservedly to the gratification of its voracious appetite. The pig is a fat-factory: it lives only to eat, digest, and fatten. Its gluttony extends even to the devouring of kitchen refuse, greasy dishwater, nasty leavings, garbage; in fact everything even to excrementitious matter. Ill effects can result from its nosing about in filth to satisfy its gluttony, since it is thus liable to a horrible disease of which we will speak later. Not satisfied with acorns and other viands that go to fill its trough, it turns up the earth with its snout in quest of roots, worms, and fat larvæ. It is always either sleeping, stretched out on its side in the full enjoyment of digestion, or rooting in the ground in the hope of some chance additional tidbit, however small. In the cultivated fields, in prairies and grass-lands, devastation makes rapid progress with such a miner tearing up the ground. To check this mania for excavating, the end of the snout is pierced with two holes through each of which is passed a piece of iron wire, which is then bent into a ring.”[331]

“Oh, I know,” cried Jules. “I have often seen little rings of iron wire at the end of a pig’s snout. I didn’t know what they were for, but now I see. If the pig wants to dig, the iron wire is pressed against the earth and bruises the raw flesh through which it passes; and the pain forces the animal to stop.”

“Yes, that is the part played by the rings fixed in the end of the snout.”

“And we see pigs, too, with a kind of large wooden triangle around the neck,” Emile put in.

“As the pig is not very tractable and pays little heed to the drover’s voice, it is customary, when a number of these animals are taken to the fields, to put around their neck a large triangular wooden collar, which prevents their getting through hedges and overrunning the neighboring cultivated fields.

“The pig’s gluttony is proverbial. But let us beware of reproaching it for this. Its voracious appetite transmutes into savory meat and fat quantities of refuse that none of the other domestic animals would eat, and that would be wasted but for its intervention; out of otherwise worthless scraps its strong stomach, which turns at nothing, makes those delectable articles of food so much enjoyed by all of you when they appear in the form of sausages and sausage-cakes. Let us not reproach it, either, for its passionate love of mud, in which it wallows to reduce its temperature. In that it simply inherits the habits of its ancestor, the wild boar, which also delights in the luxury of a mud-bath. Besides, it is more our fault than the pig’s taste. The pig likes a cold bath; [332]it submits with every indication of satisfaction to being washed and brushed by its keeper. So fond is it of cleanliness that it alone of all the domestic animals hesitates to soil its bed with its excrement. Why then does the word pig suggest the idea of dirtiness? Here we are to blame, more often than not. Let the pig be given clean water for its bath, and it will turn its back on the foul mud that it contents itself with for want of something better; let its premises be kept clean, and the poor animal will be highly delighted, much preferring a sanitary straw bed to a filthy hole. By these attentions to cleanliness the animal will be the gainer, and we shall profit likewise.

“In lifetime the pig is of no use to us, unless it be in hunting for truffles, an exercise in which it excels by reason of the extraordinary development of its nose and the keenness of its scent. Yet even for this service the dog is preferred, as being better fitted for exploring uneven ground, more active, and more intelligent. It is after its death that the pig pays us for the care bestowed upon it. Let us be present at this event, a festive occasion for the family.

“Fattened for a long time on potatoes, excellent for making flesh, and on acorns, which give firmness and savor to the meat, the porker can hardly stand on its short legs. It sleeps and digests in a reclining posture, lying lazily on its side. From its neck hang three and four great cushions of fat; under its belly are seen ponderous masses of lard; the [333]rump is well rounded, the back padded with fat. The animal is ripe for the knife. At the break of day it is aroused from its sweet repose and sacrificed in the midst of piercing cries of protest against so cruel a fate. With torches of burning straw the bristles are burnt off, after which the body is well scraped and washed, then opened and cut up. Now the housewife proceeds to the work of salting and curing this rich store of provision. Every member of the family comes to her aid. Here, over a big fire, in a resplendent copper kettle, the lard is tried out and poured into pots, where it hardens and turns as white as snow. Yonder the black puddings are hardening in boiling water. Over there some one is busily plying a big chopping-knife, mincing the meat that is to go into sausages, which will be wound in a long garland about two laths and hung from the ceiling opposite the fireplace to get a good drying. In still another place the ham is being made ready for wrapping in linen and hanging in a corner under the chimney mantel to assure its preservation. On a screen are spread the most important parts of the animal, the chine and flanks, covered with a layer of salt. And the housewife’s heart is filled with content as she views her cupboards and larders stored with provisions for a year to come.

“Now, these provisions, on which the housekeeper’s hopes are based, would speedily decay and become unfit for food without the use of salt. A piece of meat left to itself soon gives out a bad smell and undergoes putrefaction. The higher the temperature [334]and the damper the air, the more rapid the rate of decay. That is why the approach of winter and as far as possible a dry time are chosen for the annual pig-killing. Salt in liberal quantities is used for preserving the meat, lard, and fat. Salted meat dries without becoming tainted, and keeps for a long time, though not indefinitely, since sooner or later it turns rancid. Nevertheless salting is the best way to preserve meat.

“Another process, discovered long ago and very efficacious, consists in exposing the meat to the action of smoke from burning wood. That is why salted hams are hung in the chimney-corner. But on the farm it usually happens that too little attention is paid to this method of curing: it is deemed sufficient to place the hams within reach of the smoke from the fireplace without any covering to protect them. Hence the meat becomes covered with soot, black juices permeate it, and putrefaction sets in. To avoid this mishap it is enough to wrap the hams in two layers of linen, which sifts the smoke, keeps out the soot, and admits only the vapors really adapted to the preservation of the meat without blackening it and giving it a disagreeable taste.

“In various countries, Germany and England for example, smoking is practised on a large scale for curing beef as well as pork. Three or four rooms with low ceilings and communicating with one another by means of openings are connected with a fireplace at some distance, in which oak shavings and aromatic plants are burnt. The largest pieces are [335]hung in the first room on poles or iron hooks, the medium-sized pieces are hung in the second, and the smallest are relegated to the last room. The smoke, on account of the comparative remoteness of the fireplace, is cold when it reaches the first compartment, where it acts with full force on the large pieces of meat, the hardest to penetrate. Thence it passes to the second compartment, and finally to the third, thus in proportion to its loss of strength encountering pieces less resistant to its action. As food, smoked meat is preferable to salted: it tastes better and is easier to digest.

“Smoking is also applied to fish. You have a well-known example in the herring. This fish, as it comes from the grocer, is sometimes silvery white, sometimes golden red. In the first state he calls it white herring; in the second, red herring. The difference is in the way it is cured. Directly after being caught, the herrings are opened, cleaned, washed, and put to soak in brine, that is to say in a strong solution of salt. About fifteen hours later they are taken out, put to drip, and finally packed in casks in regular layers. The product of this process is the white herring, so named because the fish, simply salted and put up in casks, keeps its beautiful silvery color. Smoking produces the so-called red herring, recognizable from its golden-yellow tint and smoky smell. The fresh fish are first of all strongly salted by being left thirty hours in the brine; then they are attached to small twigs or branches passed through the gills, after which they are hung in a sort of fireplace [336]where green wood is burnt, which gives out little flame and torrents of smoke. It is here that the herring takes on its red color and its slightly smoky smell.”

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