COUNTRY LIFE AT first I thought that the black sow
was searching for something in the long grass but it was soon obvious that she was simply getting her nose under the bottom spar, for she began to bump the gate up and down until she had unhinged it and then she pushed her way through making the gate tip drunkenly. It was not a new experience. I had seen a pig do such a thing before, but I was interested because this particular animal came to the right side of the gate to achieve her purpose. She may have done so by chance, but I had been reading that pigs are creatures of considerable intelligence and that there has been an instance of one being trained as a retriever. I have a feeling that the gun-pig was a lean animal, capable of moving faster than the fat sow that upset the gate, but even she had the glint of cunning in her eye and, when I tried to head her off, she took to the ditch and came out farther on covered with mud and with a few score of flies about her head. Shortly afterwards a man came down the road and brought her back to the field, alter which he replaced the gate, but the sow had played this game before and hung about waiting to break out again. An hour later I encountered her on the road once more.
Previous page
