Greypig

The world has many peculiar learned societies. One is "for the Correct Transliteration of Russian Proper Names." Another is the Society for the Preservation of the Fauna of the [British] Empire. In the current issue of the Society's Journal, E. J. Harding discusses a species of fauna whose preservation seems extremely unlikely. This is the astoundingly fleet "Greyhound Pig," which in western Ireland a century and a half ago was frequently used as a leader of hunts.

Mr. Harding quotes the volume Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry for a description of this curious scion of a wild boar and a native highland sow. The pig was "a tall, loose species, with legs of an unusual length, with no flesh, short ears, as if they had been cropped, and with long faces of a highly intellectual cast. They were also of such activity -that few greyhounds could clear a ditch or cross a field with more agility or speed. Their backs formed a rainbow arch, capable of being contracted or extended to an inconceivable degree."

The "Greyhound Pig" is believed extinct, but Mr. Harding revived the memory of a sporting classic recorded in Sharkey's Racing Calendar for 1794. That year a "Greyhound Pig" was pitted against a race horse, the pig's backers being allowed to egg it on by whistling and shouting at the halfway mark and finish line. The pig won by a few feet, its owner taking -L-60,000.

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