Boar hunt

“ It is useless to hunt wild pig until the leaves are off the trees, for your only hope is to find them feeding on the hillsides in the morning or early evening. Then they will often come into the open or the thin forests, and you can have a fair shot across a ravine or from the summit of a hill. If they are in the brush it is well-nigh impossible to see them at all. A wild boar is very clever at eluding his pursuers, and for his size can carry off more lead and requires more killing than any other animal of which I know. ”

“ A Marquesan boar hunt, with no other weapons than knives or cutlasses, is as exciting and hazardous an undertaking as the most adventurous can desire. The pigs are scared up in the bush by dogs and men, headed [80] off in their flight along the narrow run-ways in the guava scrub, and dispatched by a knife-thrust between the base of the neck and the shoulder. ”

“ The hunters, who had viewed the chase from the side of the hill, and had been hallooing joyously on witnessing the pig, horse, and me tumble into the ditch, were greatly amused in aiding me to remove the thick coating of grey mud which shrouded my person, my gun, and the body of my horse.
On another occasion, when a very large boar, slightly wounded, was making up the side of a rocky hill, bare of bush, a strange Moor, with a long gun, who had joined the hunt, ran along the open to a narrow path where the boar would have to pass, and squatted down to pot him. ”

“ Some still exist in the large European forests, and a variety of hounds are still trained to hunt them. Horses are particularly alarmed at them, and in the history of boar-hunts, we constantly read of the sportsmen being forced to alight from their steeds to take a steady aim. ”

“ Although ladies were allowed upon this hunt, and were even armed with hunting knives, it was not expected, nor indeed permitted, that they should take an active part in it, being mostly spectators, and especially keeping at a safe distance when the final tussle with the boar is on. A full-grown boar, luckily, is bulky and noisy and not swift of foot, as reckoned with other animals, so it is quite possible to see the sport without being in actual danger. I was in hopes that this was Gaston Cheverny’s plan, but found I was mistaken. ”

“ The time chosen for the hunt is at daybreak, as the boar has probably been eating sugar-cane or other food all night, and is sleepy and heavy in the morning, and less capable of a long run. Savage and powerful dogs are used in the chase, which often prove serviceable in bringing the beast to bay. For dogs the boar has a most violent hatred, and will rush at them blindly often, with its superior strength and formidable tusks overpowering them, unless the hunter be near to use a spear or send a bullet through its heart. ”

“ Boar-hunting is not without its dangers. If the boar finds itself hard pressed by the pack of hounds pursuing it, the animal takes refuge in some dense thicket of brambles and holly, and forces a passage through the thorny rampart where no other would dare to penetrate. Through the opening thus made rush the dogs, vying with one another in ardor and in barking. There are eight, twelve, fifteen of them; no matter, the boar awaits with firmness its numerous assailants. Backing up against a gnarled stump which protects it in the rear, it sharpens its tusks and works its drivelling jaws. ”

“ Subjects coming under the heading of what we call Sport are not so common, and are practically limited to hunting scenes. They include hare-hunts, [1663] stag-hunts, [1664] wolf-hunts and fox-hunts, [1665] lion-hunts, [1666] and boar-hunts [1667] ; in the latter on early B.F. vases the figures often have fancy names, with a reference in some cases to the hunt of the Calydonian boar, which created the type. Some, especially B.F. vases, depict the departure of a hunter for the chase, [1668] or his return loaded with game [1669] ; or we see a party of hunters resting (all with fancy names) . ”

“ Boar-hunting, or, as it is commonly called, pig-sticking, is essentially an Indian sport, and I could not have partaken of it under more favourable auspices than I did at Hirsede, when, having obtained intelligence of a wild boar, and having been supplied with steeds, some five or six of us proceeded in pursuit of the denizen of the jungles. ”

“ Many of the forests in our own country were infested by wild boars. The Anglo-Saxons seem, from the rude frescoes and prints which are handed down to us, to have hunted this animal on foot with no other weapon but the boar-spear, and attended by powerful dogs ”

“ Before I close my letter I must tell you of an adventure I have had with a wild boar, which was really dangerous. F—— and another gentleman were riding with me one afternoon in a very lonely gully at the back of the run, when the dogs (who always accompany us) put up a large, fierce, black, boar out of some thick flax-bushes. Of course the hunting instinct, which all young Englishmen possess, was in full force instantly; and in default of any weapon these two jumped off their horses and picked up, out of the creek close by, the largest and heaviest stones they could lift. ”

“ The common way of hunting boars, said the chief, was to chase them through the woods and kill them by throwing tomahawks at them. This method allows the hunter to have a tree always within a short run, and about these trees he dodges when pursued, or if too closely pressed, climbs one. It is dangerous sport, as only a cool and experienced man can drive a knife into a vital part of a boar in full career, and no wound in non-vital parts will cause the desperate beast even to falter. ”

“ A boar is at all times a desperate antagonist, where the hunting-knife and dogs are the only available weapons. The largest that I ever killed, weighed four hundredweight. I was out hunting, accompanied by my youngest brother. We had walked through several jungles without success, but on entering a thick jungle in the Elk Plains we immediately noticed the fresh ploughings of an immense boar. In a few minutes we heard the pack at bay without a run, and shortly after a slow running bay-there was no mistake as to our game. ”

“ Very different is he from his tame brethren with which we are acquainted—old grunters, who wallow about the mud-puddles and sleep serenely for hours, with their fat sides baking in the sun. The wild boar is as fast as a horse, and as savage as the crossest bull. He can run so that you can scarcely catch up to him with your nag at the top of his speed, and when you do reach him he will be very apt, if you are not watchful, to rip up your horse with his tusks and cut some terrible gashes in your own legs, besides. ”

“ Wild boars often have dreadful combats with each other. In this engraving we have a representation of such a fight. The weapons with which they fight are sharp tusks growing out of the under jaw. With these tusks they can inflict dreadful wounds.
Savages, when they attack the wild boar, arm themselves with spears, and station themselves at different places in the forest, where they think the boar will pass. Sometimes they hide themselves in thickets, so as to be ready to come out suddenly and attack the boar when the dogs have seized him. ”

“ Then the boar is wonderfully tenacious of life, and has a skin so tough that a sharp weapon and a strong arm are needed to inflict a mortal wound. Even when the animal has fallen, and is apparently dead, an experienced hunter always drives his knife into its throat, as boars have an awkward way of suddenly reviving, leaping on their legs, and dashing through their foes into the bush. ”

“ Or perhaps the hounds are out, and horns are blown, and scarlet-coated huntsmen flash through the clearings, and the solid noise of horses galloping passes below you, where you sit perched among the rocks and heather. The boar is afoot, and all over the forest, and in all neighbouring villages, there is a vague excitement and a vague hope; for who knows whither the chase may lead? and even to have seen a single piqueur, or spoken to a single sportsman, is to be a man of consequence for the night. ”

“ Then the company set forth into the forest, and they did not have to wait long for their quarry, for, as soon as the wild boar heard the barking of the dogs and the sound of snorting steeds, he rushed out of his lair and savagely attacked the hunters. One after another of the heroes was gored by the boar's long tusks, or thrown down and trampled on by the cruel hoofs, or put to flight. Jason threw his spear, but it only grazed the boar's side. ”

“ At that time a boar gets so fat that he cannot run from the dogs. When they chase him for about two hours, he makes for the thicket and there stops. Then the hunters run up to the place where he stands, and shoot him. They can tell by the bark of the hounds whether the boar has stopped, or is running. If he is running, the hounds yelp, as though they were beaten; but when he stops, they bark as though at a man, with a howling sound.
During that chase I ran for a long time through the forest, but not once did I cross a boar track. ”

“ The less the sow, after bringing forth her young, is meddled with, the more comfortable her bedding, the more regularly and gently she has been previously managed and treated, the less likely is she to violate one of the great laws of nature.
"The wild boar, as we have said, is a dangerous animal; and so indeed, to a certain extent, is the domestic boar of some of the larger breeds. Instances are not unfrequent of boars turning furiously upon their keepers, especially if interfered with when in company with the female, or if constrained to quit her society. ”

“ The Christmas log next yeare,
And where 'tis safely kept, the fiend
Can do no mischiefe theere."
The boar's head held the principal place of honor at the dinner. So during September and October, when the boar's flesh was at its best, hunters with well-trained packs of boar-hounds set out to track this savage animal. They attacked the boar with spears, or surrounded him and drove him into nets. He was a ferocious antagonist to both dogs and men, and when sore pressed would wheel about, prepared to fight to the death. ”

“ F—— himself delighted to terrify me by descriptions of narrow escapes; and, as the pigs had to be killed, I resolved to follow in the hunter's train. The sport is conducted exactly like deer stalking, only it is much harder work, and a huge boar is not so picturesque an object as a stag of many tines, when you do catch sight of him. There is just the same accurate knowledge needed of the animal's habits and customs, and the same untiring patience. ”

“ The wild boar is also a formidable foe, not to flocks, but to cultivated fields, where it does great damage; besides, it is a brutal beast, rather dangerous to meet in the depths of a forest. In size and shape it closely resembles the common pig, the chief difference being in the boar’s coarse, blackish-red coat; its dorsal bristles, stiff and strong and standing up in anger in a horrible looking mane ”

“ These include ground-nesting birds, yellow adder’s-tongue and other wildflowers, and possibly deer and bear.
Studies are underway to determine the extent of the boar’s damage, and hence the real threat they pose. But we have no good comparative figures on the populations of other species for the years before boars arrived. Despite this lack, it has not been difficult to brand the boar a villain. But to control them has not been so easy. In good years they thrive—and gobble up more park resources. ”

“ To the cries of the pack, howling, barking, and growling in various keys, and to the wild boar’s grunts of rage, are added the crashing sound of underbrush broken in the fierce scrimmage and the shrill notes of the magpies that have flown in all haste to the scene of tumult and from the surrounding tree-tops noisily discuss the event. Finally the boar emerges from the thicket and, drunk with carnage, takes its turn as pursuer. Woe then to the inexperienced hunter who loses his presence of mind or whose shot misses its mark: he might forfeit his life for his unwariness and lack of skill. ”

“ The boar is by no means an animal easy to knock over. The forest roads are never more than ten to fifteen paces broad; and as there are marksmen both on the right and left, it is necessary to reserve your fire until the animal has crossed the road and is plunging again into cover. In addition to this, there are only two spots where a mortal wound can be inflicted upon the boar—either behind the shoulder or in the neck. ”

“ The huntsman is aware of the seizure by the grunting of the boar and the tremendous confusion in the thick jungle; he immediately rushes to the assistance of the pack, knife in hand.
A scene of real warfare meets his view—gaping wounds upon his best hounds, the boar rushing through the jungle covered with dogs, and he himself becomes the immediate object of his fury when observed.
No time is to be lost. Keeping behind the boar if possible, he rushes to the bloody conflict, and drives the hunting-knife between the shoulders in the endeavour to divide the spine. ”

“ For they are in grease when they be withdrawn from the sows. The sows are in season from the brimming time which is to say the twelfth day after Christmas till the time when they have farrowed. The boars turn commonly to bay on leaving their dens for the pride that is in them, and they run upon some hounds and at men also. But when the boar is heated, or wrathful, or hurt, then he runneth upon all things that he sees before him. ”

“ The wild boar, properly so called, is neither a solitary nor a gregarious animal. For the first two or three years the whole herd follows the sow, and all unite in defence against any enemies, calling upon each other with loud cries in case of emergency, and forming in regular line of battle, the weakest occupying the rear. ”