trailing behind her , but attempting to stay in step was a sacred pig-like creaturethough not a sacred pig , precisely , as it seemed to possess fins and whiskers , as well as tail featherswho seemed to be questioning irately the validity of the newly devised system of taxonomic classification that the republic had recently taken to endorsing , as it designated his kind as a regional variety of lesser bison-144 ( presumably , for the purposes of having more simplified categories by which the government might keep track of its available domestic resources ) , when , in fact , his was a sacred and divine species that had , until recently , remained safely distinct from the countless lesser creatures that had now come to be lumped into the same category with them .