MDDM Ch. 64 Pigs

[Samuel Moyer]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Dave Monroe" <davidmmonroe at yahoo.com>

> "On the Learned Pig"
>
> Though Johnson, learned Bear, is gone,
>   Let us no longer mourn our loss,
> For lo, a learned Hog is come,
>   And wisdom grunts at Charing Cross.
>
> Happy for Johnson--that he died
>   Before this wonder came to town,
> Else it had blasted all his pride
>   Another brute should gain renown
>
> The Public Advertiser, 6 April 1785
>

> --- jbor <jbor at bigpond.com> wrote:
> > 624.2 Pigs briefly acquire the power of speech

and:

Flipping through _Witnessing America_ Edited by Noel Rae... a book of first
hand accounts... and saw this bit about a Learned Pig.

Rare Pig.  As Recorded by Dr. Benjamin Rush of Philadelphia...July 14, 1797.

Went to see a "learned pig."  He was over a year old, was about 1/2 a foot
high, and had cost the owner 1000 dollars.  He distinguished all the letters
in the alphabet on cards and picked them up with his mouth, he spelled every
word that was told to him by bringing the letters of which those words were
composed and laying them at his owner's feet.  He did several small sums in
addition, subtraction, and multiplication, he distinguished colors, and
lastly he told the name of the card taken out of the pack, by taking up with
his mouth the corresponding card from a pack on the floor.

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0202&msg=64986&keywords=learned%
20pig

S