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Show HYBERNATION [HIBERNATION] OF A PIG. Mr. Ehlerhausen, one of the proprietors of a copper mine at Little Bay, tells a remarkable story. A wooden house was built on sloping ground, and "shored" so that there was a vacant space beneath the floor. Before this space was boarded in a pig crept in and fell asleep. The office was not immediately occupied and the noise made by the pig when it discovered its dilemma was not heard. Like a true philosopher, the pig accommodated itself to its circumstances. It wrapped itself in the shavings and went to sleep for the winter. This was on the 22d of November, 187?. The pig was remarkably fat and plump and a credit to its owner, who sincerely mourned his loss about Christmas time. The pig found a viaticum in its fat that kept up animal heat and sustained life. The office was occupied, but the tramp of feet did not disturb the sleeper. For four months the pig slept as sound as a Pharaoh in a sarcophagus. With the genial warmth of April its vital energies returned. Its fat was exhausted. It rubbed its eyes, turned over and began to grunt. The occupants of the office were mystified. The animal grunted with a gusto and began to knock for a release. A board or two was removed and the pig was brought to light. Its appearance was most pathetic. The ribs on each side seemed to have met. The hams had vanished, and only the hip joints remained gaunt and angular. The vertebrae could be counted, and the ears drooped from the large skull. The eyes looked out of deep bony sockets with a profoundly melancholy expression, as though their owner had been in the other world and had found there specially hard times. For a time no one recognized the pig, but at length the woman who owned it declared, with tears in her eyes, that she knew it by the peculiar twist in its tail. It had a singularly graceful curl in its appendage-the only aesthetic point about it-and this has survived the destruction of all tissues. The poor woman's joy over the recovery of her lost pet was quite touching. The news spread rapidly, and the miners gathered from all quarters to view the wonderful pig that had lived for 142 days without food or drink. Presents flowed in, and delicacies unheard of in the dietary of pighood were liberally supplied. Warm compounds of oatmeal and biscuit flavored with delicious scraps and tidbits from kindly house wives, soon began to tell on the pig's condition and swell out its lean flanks. Its story went the round of the mines, and everywhere awoke sympathy and enthusiasm. It is now as plump as ever, and the curl in its tail is even more strongly pronounced than ever.-Duluth Tribune and Herald. |
