The feeding of soldiers on pork seems to have a philosophy in it. It is the meat of the best tactician among brute animals. Sillman’s Journal gives the following curious illustration of this:
    A gentleman while travling some years ago, through the wilds of Vermont, perceived at a little distance before him a herd of swine, and his attention was arrested by the agitation they exhibited. He quickly perceived a number of young pigs in the centre of the herd, and that the hogs were arranged about them in a conical form, having their heads turned outward. At the apex of this singular cone a huge boar had placed himself, who, from his size, seemed to be the master of the herd.
    The traveler now observed that a famished wolf was attemping, by various maneuvers, to seize on the pigs in the middle; but, whenever he made an attack, the huge boar at the apex of the cone presented himself; The hogs dexterously arranging themselves on each side of him, so as to preserve the position of defence just mentioned. The attention of the traveler was for a moment withdrawn, and upon turning to view the combatants, he was surprised to find the herd of swine dispersed, and the wolf no longer seen. On riding up to the spot, the wolf was discovered dead on the ground, a wound being made in his side more than a foot in length-the boar, no doubt, having seized a favorable opportunity, and with a sudden plunge dispatched his adversary with his formidable tusks.
    It is a little remarkable that the ancient Romans, among the various methods they devised for drawing up their armies in battle, had one exactly resembling the posture assumed by the swine above mentioned. The mode of attack was called Cuncus, or Caput procinum.”
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