The parable of the Prodigal Son marks the depth of his degradation by making him a swineherd. But our English chroniclers give a story, in which a herd of swine running into the water, caused the foundation of one of the best known and most beautiful cities of England. As the story is not generally known we will give it shortly. A British prince, named Bladud, became leprous, and was driven from his home, and, being forced to become a swineherd, he communicated his disease to his four-footed companions, and they wandered about, shunned by all. One day Bladud's pigs took a strange freak. Being on a steep hill in the forest, they all ran hastily down, and plunged into a marsh at the foot of the hill, and there they lay wallowing, and resisting all Bladud's efforts to draw them away. Day after day they returned to their mud bath, till Bladud saw with pleasure and surprise that they were all cured of the leprosy. Being a wise prince, he was not above learning - even of a pig - and, following their example, he too was soon cured, and enabled to return to his father, and eventually to become king in his place. He built a city on the spot where he was cured, with baths for lepers, and this was the origin of the far-famed baths of Bath - which certainly were held in repute even before the coming of the Romans. Should any of our readers visit that fairest of cities, they may see an ancient statue of Prince Bladud, with an assigned date of centuries B.C., still presiding over the hot bath, which is supposed to have been the scene of his cure, and will find in the city many allusions to the tradition.

The pig is, as we know, all in all to the Irish peasantry - 'the gintleman that pays the rint,' when allowed to do so - and the bacon exported from Ireland is not to be surpassed; but most of that consumed in London comes from the celebrated manufactory of Harris, of Calne, Wiltshire, where thousands of pigs are killed and cured somewhat after the Chicago fashion - going in at one end live pig, and coming out at the other, bacon or sausages. I cannot say I quite like this rapid curing process, which is not always perfect, and, as a housekeeper, I often long for the old-fashioned home-cured bacon and hams of my youth; but a taste has arisen for what is known in the market as mild-cured bacon, which to my mind means only half-cured; caterers for the public, however, find it profitable to supply mild-cured meat, which requires rapid consumption, so that it is difficult now to find really well-salted meat or fish of any kind.

We all know Lamb's amusing story of the origin of sucking pig, but few of us realise the vast importance of pork and bacon as human food. Pigs have been introduced into every country to which commerce has extended, and now exist in great numbers all over the South Sea Islands, which, when first discovered, had no quadrupeds fit for food; the inhabitants consequently feasted upon human victims. The vast quantities of bacon and hams which come to us yearly from America and Canada, show how important the pig has become commercially, but from the very earliest times the wild pig seems to have occupied a foremost place as an article of diet, for the bones of the wild boar are found in almost all kitchen-middens of pre-historic times, and the animal plays an important role in Scandinavian legends.

All our early poets have drawn inspiration from the noble sport of stag hunting, and certainly in all the menus of ancient times, venison figured prominently; but who can now compound such a venison pasty as that upon which the bold Friar Tuck regaled the Black Knight in Sherwood Forest?

Nothing gave such offence to our ancestors as the turning of waste lands into deer forests by some of the early Norman kings for the sake of sport; and the preservation of the deer in these forests, required constant watchfulness on the part of the keepers, for the forests were haunted by poachers, some of whom, like Robin Hood and his merry men, were not of the lower orders, but outlawed noblemen, for it seems to be pretty well established that Robin Hood was really the Earl of Huntingdon, who had been banished by Richard I. for misdemeanours.

Everyone knows the story of the New Forest, in Hampshire, created by William the Conqueror, and the tragic death in it of his son William Rufus. But the New Forest, although the largest, was far from being the only deer forest in England; indeed, even as late as last century, there were no fewer than 68, besides 18 chases and 780 parks*. In all, or in most of these, fallow-deer were allowed to roam freely, and the tenants of forest lands were forbidden to plough the land, and were obliged to preserve pasturage for the deer. The number of deer thus kept must have been enormous. In Cranbourne Chase alone we are told 12,000 were pastured, but the constant conflicts between the poachers and keepers, which often ended in loss of life, caused most of the forests to be disafforested, so that now the deer in England are reduced to a comparatively small number, and are mostly kept in gentlemen's parks, to the beauty of which they largely contribute.

As a sport, deer-stalking is now quite unknown in England, although carried on in Scotland, where the wild mountains and forests still shelter some of the noble red-deer, which is much fiercer than the beautiful dappled fallow deer of our parks, in some of which a few red deer are also kept.

There is a sport called stag-hunting still carried on in England, but which would be looked upon as a farce by those accustomed to the chase of wild animals. The Queen keeps a pack of stag-hounds and some trained stags, and when a stag hunt is announced, one of the trained stags is conveyed in a cart to a certain spot and there let loose. After a few minutes grace the hounds are sent in pursuit, followed by the whole field of hunters, till after a run of some miles the stag gets tired, and deliberately waits till the huntsman comes up and captures him, when he is again put into the cart and taken back to his snug quarters. Oh, shade of Robin Hood ! with what utter contempt must thou regard this poor remnant of ancient British sport!