Boar

“ And we, too, like him, remember the smell of the fallen leaves, and the taste of the forest fruits, and of pig, roast pig. And if the pig in his heart is still a wild boar, no less are we at times wild savages in our hearts. ”

“ The boar pulls himself together, feeling that he is to die, and, up to his belly in water, he bravely awaits the pack. With his eye glowing with rage, his bristles erect, he utters grunts of defiance. The fifty dogs throw themselves on to him without a moment’s hesitation ”

“ 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. ”

“ All day their bodies are cooled and refreshed by water. I wish I were a boar.” Accordingly at night he recounted to the Rishi the troubles of the life of an ape and the pleasures of that of a boar, and begged of him to change him into a boar. The sage, whose kindness knew no bounds, complied with his pet’s request, and turned him into a wild boar. For two whole days our boar kept his body soaking wet, and on the third day, as he was splashing about in his favourite element, whom [135] should he see but the king of the country riding on a richly caparisoned elephant. ”

“ But, Lord, when I think of a huge boar, wicked and unprofitable, who fattens, pastures and wallows upon and in my own meager pittance, in return for which the gormandizer grunts, steps upon my feet, turns me black and blue butting against me, and bites me—is it at all astonishing if then my long face should grow still longer and look sad? ”

“ The young wild boar is a fine and delicate game, also, when a year old. The ancients submitted{188} those they could take away from their mother to castration, and left them afterwards to run about the woods, where these animals became larger than the others, and acquired a savour and flavour which made them preferable to the pigs we rear.”—Sonnini. ”

“ And if a man see a wild boar the which seemeth to him great enough, as men say of the hart chaceable of ten, he shall say a wild boar of the third year that is without refusal, and whenever they be not of three years men call them swine of the sounder, and if he see the great tokens that I shall rehearse hereafter he may say that he is a great boar. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Yet be ye cautious, firm, and wise, Or other foes may still arise, And ye may scarcely yet escape From boars in brute or human shape. Still, good advice I give to you: Be honest, loyal, just, and true; Drink not the wine that tastes of cork; Keep down the pigs by eating pork; Love sausages (avoiding shams) ; And don’t forget to cure your hams. So, if your lives are good and pure, Your happiness shall be secure; Windsor to high renown shall soar, And ne’er again be spoiled by boar. Meanwhile, ’tis time I play my part, And banish hence foul magic art! ”

“ Routing or rooting. A wild boar is said to root when he is feeding on ferns or roots (Turb., pp. 153, 154) .
Argus, as our MS. calls the dew-claws of the boar, were in the later language of venery called the gards (Blome, p. 102) . Twety and Gyfford named the dew-claws of the stag os and of the boar ergos. "How many bestis bere os, and how many ergos? The hert berith os above, the boor and the buk berith ergos."
Grease, as the fat of the boar or sow was called, was supposed to bear medicinal qualities. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The flesh of the wild boar is also much esteemed. Cato,345 the Censor, in his orations, strongly declaimed against the use of the brawn of the wild boar.2077 The animal used to be divided into three portions, the middle part of which was laid by,2078 and is called boar’s chine. P. Servilius Rullus was the first Roman who served up a whole boar at a banquet; the father of that Rullus, who, in the consulship of Cicero, proposed the Agrarian law. ”

“ Still another course of food which we had was wild boar from the mountains. I can only say that the flesh is hard and tough. Brother Pratt shot a boar with his shotgun. This pleased the natives very much. I also gave chase to one which led me so far away from water that I felt I should die of thirst and heat. ”

“ 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 ”

“ They project with a descending curve from the upper jaw, and would give the animal the very false appearance of a small wild boar, but for the great delicacy of its legs, which are more slender than even those of our roebuck, to whom, with the exception of the horns, it bears a close resemblance, as its name implies. ”

“ The fierce robbers come down from the mountains, and carry off the little children, and sell them to the Moors. The lions lie in wait for the caravans, and leap upon the camels. The wild boar roots up the corn in the valley, and the foxes gnaw the vines upon the hill. ”

“ Then the pigs, who generally are less valiant than our wild boar of Lough Cluen, seized with apparent panic, rush round and round in the yard, and the flurried ducks that scuttle from under our horses’ hoofs end by falling on their sides in the ditches—surely all in fun? ”

“ Of the season and nature of boar and of other beasts, [Pg 144] I have spoken here before. And if men ask him of a boar's feeding, it is properly called of acorns of oak's bearing, and of beechmast, the other feeding is called worming and rooting of the roots out of the earth that feed him. The other kind of feeding is of corn and of other things that come up out of the land, and of flowers and of other herbs; the other kind of feeding is when they make great pits, and go to seek the root of ferns and of spurge within the earth. ”

“ 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 boar, when aware that he is pursued, puts on pace. It requires a fast horse to come up for the first quarter of a mile; but when hard pressed, the boar gets blown, shortens stride, and begins to dodge amongst the low bush.
One of the best gallops I ever had was in pursuit of a huge boar, who took across the lake from a thicket of Arára. ”

“ When at last he is shot, the boar is capital eating. His flesh is far superior to common pork, possessing the peculiar delicate flavor which belongs to most wild meat. If we could shoot a wild boar every few days, we would be sure to fare very well during our hunting expedition.
But we must press on after other game, and we will now try and get a shot at a musk-ox. We shall have to go somewhat out of our way to find this animal, for he lives in the upper portions of North America, but an ocean and a continent or two are not at all difficult to cross—in a book. ”

“ It is an historical commonplace that in the bleak cold north of Europe boar’s flesh was found more to man’s taste than that of the bull or bear, because it is fatter, richer, and produces much more heat. ”

“ The struggle which follows is terrible; the boar’s tusks tell at every blow, and the water becomes literally red with blood. At length the foremost sportsmen come up, and it is high time they do. Seven dogs are already lying on their backs, with their legs in the air, and almost all bear marks of the boar’s terrible tusks. ”

“ But men do not take them to the curée nor are they judged as of the hart or other beasts of venery.
A boar can with great pain live twenty years; he never casts his teeth nor his tusks nor loses them unless by a stroke.83 The boar's grease is good as that of other tame swine, and their flesh also. Some men say that by the foreleg of a boar one can know how old he is, for he will have as many small pits in the forelegs as he has years, but of this I make no affirmation. ”

“ The parent stock of our domestic swine is the wild boar, which inhabits the forests of France, Germany, and other parts of Europe, as well as those of Persia and India.
Wild boars usually live in families, and are hunted, as an amusement, in all the parts of the world where they are found. The flesh of the wild animals, if they are not old, is said to be much superior to that of our domestic swine. That of the young ones is peculiarly delicate. Of an old wild boar the head only is eatable. ”

“ The wild boar is a great nuisance to the station holders and farmers in the hills and back country, as he disregards all boundaries and takes a delight in making gaps so that the sheep of adjoining owners may make neighbourly calls upon each other. ”

“ The largest boar I have ever seen measured six feet four from snout to tail, three feet four at the shoulder, and weighed twenty stone—clean. An old beater of eighty, whose dog had been wounded to the death, when he came up to the monster lying lifeless, got upon the body, took off from his shaven pate the red gun-cover which he used as a turban, and throwing it on the ground, cried out, ‘Now I can die in peace. ”

“ The wild boar is generally admitted to be the parent of the stock from which all our domesticated breeds and varieties have sprung. This animal is generally of a dusky brown or iron-gray color, inclining to black, and diversified with black spots or streaks. The body is covered with coarse hairs, intermixed with a downy wool; these hairs become bristles as they approach the neck and shoulders, and are in those places so long as to form a mane, which the animal erects when irritated. ”

“ And therefore as soon as the form of the traces of his foot is in the earth, the form of the bones is there also, and commonly a great boar maketh a longer trace with one of his claws than with the other in front or behind, and sometimes both. And when a man seeth the tokens beforesaid greater, he may deem him greater, and the smaller the trace, the smaller the boar. The sow from the boar ye may know well, for the sow maketh not so good a talon as a right young boar doth. And also a sow's claws are longer and sharper in front than a young boar's. ”

“ How strange they look as they wander through the forest, sometimes a few together, at other times twenty or thirty, or even larger numbers!
That morning we got into new and fresh tracks of the wild boars; the earth was all uprooted by their snouts. ”

“ A second cousin to the Huge Wild Boar.
But Pigs are civilized, while Huge Wild Boars
Live savagely, at random, out of doors,
And, in their coarse contempt for dainty foods,
Subsist on Truffles, which they find in woods. ”

“ Refrain:He was, etc.
"What are you doing, my fair lady?"
"I"m fightened the wild boar he will kill me;
He has worried my lord and wounded thirty."
Refrain:As thou art, etc.
Then the friar he put his horn to his mouth,
And he blew a blast, east, west, north and south,
And the wild boar from his den he came forth. ”

“ It is not, however, only at certain times and under certain circumstances that the boar is dangerous: a boar, especially one of the large old breeds, is by no means a safe animal to venture near at any time, and we have more than once seen sows almost equally savage ”

“ The best plan is, to shut up the boar and sow in a sty together; for, when turned in among several females, he is apt to ride them so often that he exhausts himself without effect. The breeding boar should be fed well and kept in high condition, but not fat. Full grown boars being often savage and difficult to tame, and prone to attack men and animals, should be deprived of their tusks. ”

“ The mere fact that irritability and nervousness are natural to the pig should make us the more careful to avoid any increase in the failing by using a boar which is the least inclined to be bad tempered. ”

“ But delicate connoisseurs had always the wisdom to prefer the dangerous inhabitant of the forest to these bloated victims of enervating domesticity, [XIX_78] whose insipid and degenerate flavour hardly betrayed their origin.{187}
The wild boar was generally served surrounded by pyramids of fruits and lettuces. [XIX_79]
Wild Boar à la Pompée.—Clean and salt a wild boar, cover it with cummin; let it remain in salt during twenty-four hours; then roast it; sprinkle with pepper, and serve with a seasoning of honey, garum, sweet and cooked wine. ”