All the offences which swine commit are attributed to a disposition innately bad; whereas they too often arise from bad management, or total neglect. They are legitimate objects for the sport of idle boys, hunted with curs, pelted with stones, often neglected and obliged to find a meal for themselves, or wander about half-starved. Made thus the Ishmaelites of our domestic animals, is it a matter of wonder that they should, under such circumstances, incline to display Ishmaelitish traits? In any well-regulated farm-yard, the swine are as tractable and as little disposed to wander or trespass as any of the animals that it contains. The WILD BOAR is generally admitted to be the parent of the stock from which all our domesticated breeds and varieties have sprung. This animal is generally of a dusky brown or iron-gray color, inclining to black, and diversified with black spots or streaks. The body is covered with coarse hairs, intermixed with a downy wool; these hairs become bristles as they approach the neck and shoulders, and are in those places so long as to form a mane, which the animal erects when irritated. The head is short, the forehead broad and flat, the ears short, rounded at the tips, and inclined toward the neck, the jaw armed with sharp, crooked tusks, which curve slightly upward, and are capable of inflicting fearful wounds, the eye full, neck thick and muscular, the shoulders high, the loins broad, the tail stiff, and finished off with a tuft of bristles at the tip, the haunch well turned, and the leg strong. A full-grown wild boar in India averages from thirty to forty inches in height at the shoulder; the African wild boar is about twenty-eight or thirty inches high. The wild boar is a very active and powerful animal, and becomes fiercer as he grows older. When existing in a state of nature, he is generally found in moist, shady, and well-wooded situations, not far remote from streams or water. In India, they are found in the thick jungles, in plantations of sugar-cane or rice, or in the thick patches of high, long grass. In England, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain, their resorts have been in the woods and forests. This animal is naturally herbivorous, and appears to feed by choice upon plants, fruits, and roots. He will, however, eat the worms and larvæ which he finds in the ground, also snakes and other such reptiles, and the eggs of birds. They seldom quit their coverts during the day, but prowl about in search of food during twilight and the night. Their acute sense of smell enables them to detect the presence of roots or fruits deeply imbedded in the soil, and they often do considerable mischief by ploughing up the ground in search of them, particularly as they do not, like the common hog, root up a little spot here and there, but plough long, continuous, furrows.