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CHAP. 78.—THE WILD BOAR; WHO WAS THE FIRST TO ESTABLISH PARKS FOR WILD ANIMALS.

The flesh of the wild boar is also much esteemed. Cato, the Censor, in his orations, strongly declaimed against the use of the brawn of the wild boar.1 The animal used to be divided into three portions, the middle part of which was laid by,2 and is called boar's chine. P. Servilius Rullus was the first Roman who served up a whole boar at a banquet; the father of that Rullus, who, in the consulship of Cicero, proposed the Agrarian law. So recent is the introduction of a thing which is now in daily use. The Annalists have taken notice of such a fact as this, clearly as a hint to us to mend our manners; seeing that now-a-days two or three boars are consumed, not at one entertainment, but as forming the first course only.

(52.) Fulvius Lupinus was the first Roman who formed parks3 for the reception of these and other wild animals: he first fed them in the territory of Tarquinii: it was not long, however, that imitators were found in L. Lucullus and Q. Hortensius.4 The wild sow brings forth once only in the year. The males are very fierce during the rutting time; they fight with each other, having first hardened their sides by rubbing them against the trees, and covered themselves with mud. The females, as is the case with animals of every kind, become more fierce just after they have brought forth. The wild boar is not capable of generating before the first year. The wild boar of India5 has two curved teeth, projecting from beneath the muzzle, a cubit in length; and the same number projecting from the forehead, like the horns of the young bull. The hair of these animals, in a wild state, is the eclour of copper, the others are black. No species whatever of the swine is found in Arabia.

1 "Aprugnum callum;" Plauts, in detailing the preparations for a feast, enumerates the following articles, "pernam, callum, glandium, sumen;" Pseudolus, A. i. s. 2, 1. 32; all of which are parts of the hog.

2 "Ponebatur." Littré and Ajasson render this, "placed at table." It would appear, however, that the meaning is that this part was put by for salting, and the other parts were served at table while fresh.

3 "Vivaria;" Varro, B. iii. c. 12, and Aulus Gellius, B. ii. c. 20, give an account of the different places which were employed by the Romans for preserving animals of various descriptions, with their appropriate designations. Varro names the inventor Fulvius Lippinus.—B.

4 Varro, B. iii. c. 13, gives an animated description of a visit to what he calls the leporarium of Hortensius, where, besides hares, as the name implies, there was a multitude of stags, boars, and other four-footed animals.

5 Ælian, De Anim. Nat. B. xvi. c. 37, says, that no boar, either wild or tame, is produced in India, and that the Indians never use the flesh of this animal, as they would regard the use of it with as much horror as of human flesh.—B. The "Sus babiroussa" is probably meant by Pliny.

The Natural History. Pliny the Elder. John Bostock, M.D., F.R.S. H.T. Riley, Esq., B.A. London. Taylor and Francis, Red Lion Court, Fleet Street. 1855.

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