Soon, however, notes and coins could go the same way as pigs, to be replaced by electronic digits that transfer value at the click of a mouse or so digital enthusiasts would have us believe.

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And Rovio said: go forth and be angry, for the pigs hath absconded with thy eggs and hidden themselves away in curiously arranged fortresses of stone and wood furnished with many glittering jewels and succulent hams.

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To understand, one must first go back thousands of years to Phoenician times, when black-hooved pigs (another name for the breed is pata negra, or black hoof) were introduced to an oak-grove ecosystem in southwestern Spain known as the dehesa.

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