Wild hog

“ Their ears have become erect, their heads are larger, and their foreheads vaulted at the upper part; their color has lost the variety found in the domestic breeds, the wild hogs of the American forests being uniformly black. The hog which inhabits the high mountains of Paramos bears a striking resemblance to the wild boar of France. His skin is covered with thick fur, often somewhat crisp, beneath which is found in some individuals a species of wool. ”

“ The young Englishman, never having seen a wild boar in its native haunts, put the question conjecturally; but a moment’s observation of the animal convinced him that his conjecture was correct. The short upright ears, the long head, hams, and legs, the shaggy neck and frontlet, the foxy red colour, the quick short step as it moved onward—all these points, combined with a certain savage air which Herbert noticed at a glance, satisfied him that the animal under his eyes was not one of the domestic breed, but a genuine wild hog of the woods. ”

“ Five of these species need only be regarded as objects of curiosity; the sixth is the common wild hog of the eastern continent, which we will describe, in order to illustrate the difference between a good and a bad animal of the same variety; they have long-peaked snouts, coarse heads, thin chests, narrow shoulders, sharp backs, slab sides, meagre, diminutive hams, big legs, clumped feet, the hide of a rhinoceros, the hair and bristles of a porcupine, and as thick and shaggy as a bear's; they have no capacity for digesting and concocting their food in the stomach for nourishment ”

“ Though far inferior in size to the true wild hog, these animals exhibit much of the characteristics of that animal, and probably owe their origin to a cross between the wild hogs introduced into the forest by Charles I., and some of the ordinary breeds of his period. These animals are heavy in the fore quarters, but light and meagre behind; the withers are high, the ears short, the mane thick and bristly, the color black or brindled; the disposition is fierce and distrustful, and they display extraordinary activity and acuteness. ”

“ One or two quotations will illustrate the habits of the wild hogs of India, as well as the mode in which they are hunted.
"The pace and powers of 'the wild hog' are not to be estimated by any comparison with those of the tame one. Persons unacquainted with the vigor and speed of the jungle hog will be surprised to learn that it requires a good horse to keep near a moderately-sized hog, and that it is by no means uncommon to see what is considered as a moderately-sized animal overthrow many horses in succession. ”

“ In the more thinly settled districts, hunting enables them to increase the variety of their food with the flesh of wild hogs, deer, and other game, which are generally brought down with stone-headed arrows. When hunting the wild hog, they stretch a strong net, with large meshes, in some part of the woods, and drive the animals towards it. ”

“ THE WILD BOAR.
This is the original from which all the different kinds of the tame hog have sprung. He is not subject to the varieties of the domestic races, but is uniformly of a brindled or dark gray, inclining to black. His snout is longer than that of the tame hog, his ears short, and pricked. He has formidable tusks in each jaw, sometimes nearly a foot long,—those in the upper jaw bending upwards in a circular form, exceedingly sharp, being those with which the animal defends himself, and frequently inflicts mortal wounds. ”

“ The next kind is the white hog, which has much the same habits as the former, except that it is usually found in moist places, near lakes and rivers, and is often called the marsh-pig. The third kind is perfectly black, much smaller in size, and very active, affording by far the best sport, and also the best food when killed. ”

“ The wild goats are very numerous, cautious, and difficult to approach, and are mostly white, but some are party-colored. The hog in a single generation "changes in form, color, and habit, from the staid and quiet porker to the fleet and fierce wild boar"; and one imported boar is told of that changed immediately after escaping from a ranch, and became as wild and fleet almost as a deer, with a thin body and arched back, and legs that appeared to be much longer, while he more slowly assumed the dark, sandy color of the wild boar. ”

“ This cold weather coming on marks the time for hog killing, and some of the porkers have been running in the woods, fattening on the mast. There is an old mother hog that has gotten quite wild, and has a litter of young ones with her that are hard to catch. ”

“ From among the cloven-footed or many-toed animals of the pachydermatous order of mammalia, man has subjugated and reclaimed only two—viz., the hog and the elephant.
The domestic hog is the descendant of a race long since subjugated; yet while a race of domesticated swine has been and is kept under surveillance, the wild type whence this race sprung has maintained itself in its native freedom, the fierce denizen of the forest, and one of the renowned beasts of "venerie." Its wild source still exists, and is universally recognized; it roams through the vast wooded tracts of Europe and Asia. ”

“ Most of the beasts of the wildwood let the hog alone. He is not safe game. But for many long years he has been hunted by man, who likes a game that has a spice of danger. In the days of old Rome the chase of the hog was a favorite sport, and it was the same in later times, when the lords and dukes of England and Germany were very fond of hunting the wild boar. In our days "pig-sticking" is a common sport of the English in India.
Mounted on trained horses and armed with long, sharp lances, the hunters seek to bring down their game from the saddle. ”

“ While in the Mississippi country, however, they find other game, and feast upon the hogs of the woods' people. To prevent detection, the skin, with the swine-herd's peculiar mark upon it, is stripped off and buried.
When engaged in the precarious occupation of hog-stealing, the shanty- man is careful to keep a goodly number of the skins of wild animals stretched upon the outside walls of his cabin, so that visitors to his boat may be led to imagine that he is an industrious and legitimate trapper, of high-toned feelings, and one "who wouldn't stick a man's hog for no money." ”

“ The fact is, that from April to November, during which period the canes and corn are off the grounds, the wild hogs are compelled to wander from the copses and long grass jungles in which they take refuge, to greater distances, in search of food, by which means they are not only kept low in flesh, but, from their daily exercises, get confirmed in good wind, and seem rather to attack the hunter than to run away ”

“ Of the identity of these bones with those of the ordinary wild hog, all doubt has been removed by the most rigorous comparisons; nevertheless, we do not assert that no other species of sus may not have anciently existed, which, like the mammoth and the mastodon, has become extinct; we mean only to say that the bones of the sus scrofa are among the fossil remains of our island and the continent of Europe. Professor Owen gives an excellent figure of the fossil skull of a wild boar, from drift in a fissue of the free-stone quarries in the Isle of Portland. ”

“ For example, the South Sea Islands, on their discovery by Europeans, were found to be well stocked with a small black-legged hog; and the traditionary belief of the people, in regard to the original introduction of these animals, showed that they were supposed to be as anciently descended as the people themselves. Yet the latter had no knowledge of the wild boar or any other animal of the hog kind, from which the domestic breed might have been supposed to be derived. The hog is in these islands the principal quadruped, and is more carefully cultivated than any other. ”

“ The wild hog, la′-man or fang′-o, when hunted with dogs is a surly fighter and prefers to take its chances at bay; consequently Page 83it is more often killed then by the spearman than in the runway. The wild hog is also often caught in pitfalls dug in the runways or in its feeding grounds. ”

“ Nature in their formation seems to have adopted a smaller scale, and to have formed man alone in the same mould. But to proceed in our enumeration:—The hog, then, is not a native of America, but was carried thither; and he has not only increased in a domestic state but has even become wild, and multiplied in the woods without the assistance of man. A species of hog has also been transported from Guinea to Brasil, which has likewise multiplied; it is much smaller, and seems to form a distinct species from the European hog ”

“ The wild hog, the tapir, and deer supply most of the meat, which is cured in the same way as fish: some cutting the meat in strips, and curing it on the buccan, or grate of sticks, while others prefer the barbecue method which is to smoke-dry the whole animal. ”

“ This kind is believed to represent the true wild boar, which was extinct, or merged in the domestic hog among the ancients, except in that neighbourhood where the strain remained.
With wild times, the wild habits have returned, and the grey boar is at once the most difficult of access, and the most ready to encounter either dogs or men. Although the first, or thorn-hog, does the most damage to the agriculturist because of its numbers, and its habit of haunting the neighbourhood of enclosures, the others are equally injurious if they chance to enter the cultivated fields. ”

“ The hog has survived changes which have swept multitudes of pachydermatous animals from the surface of our earth. It still maintains an independent existence in Europe, and presents the same characters, both physical and moral, which the earliest writers, whether sacred or profane, have faithfully delineated. The domestic stock has indeed been more or less modified by long culture, but the wild species remains unaltered, insomuch that the fossil relics of its primitive ancestors may be identified by comparison with the bones of their descendants. ”

“ At Chantilly, within forty miles of Paris, the late Prince of Condé, who died in 1830, kept a pack of hounds expressly for the purpose of hunting the boar; and some English gentlemen who visited the hunting palace in the summer of 1830, were informed by the huntsman that a few days previously he had seen no less than fourteen wild hogs at one time. But the good old "wild boar hunt," as once existed, with all its perils and excitements, is now extinct in France as well as in Germany. ”

“ Boiled apples mixed with potatoes, Indian-corn flour, or buck-wheat, will no doubt prove nutritious, and in America constitute a cheap diet, but the case is different in England. In North Africa the wild-boar makes incursions into the melon-grounds, and we can conceive that melons, abounding with saccharine matter, are grateful to the palate of the wild hog, and so no doubt are apples, pumpkins, and peaches, but they do not enter into the English bill of fare for hogs. ”

“ Roots and fruits are the natural food of the hog, in a wild as well as in a domesticated state; and it is evident that, however omnivorous this animal may occasionally appear, its palate is by no means insensible to the difference of eatables, for whenever it finds variety it will be found to select the best with as much cleverness as other quadrupeds. ”

“ Thus these animals are not confined to any particular climates; it is only observable, that the boar, by becoming domestic, degenerates more in cold than in warm climates. A degree of temperature is sufficient to change their colour. Hogs are commonly white in the northern parts of France, as they are in Vivarais, while in Dauphiny, which is not far distant, they are all black; those of Languedoc, Provence, Spain, Italy, India, China, and America, are also of the same colour. The hog of Siam has a greater resemblance than the hog of France to the wild boar. ”

“ The Papuan hog, caught and reared in captivity, is distinct, and it is probable that the domestic hogs of Borneo, and of some of the islands adjacent, are derived from the wild races there indigenous. Be this as it may, we do not mean to insist upon the fact; our subject is the ordinary hog, as we see it in its state of contented domestication in Europe, and especially our own country. ”

“ The swine here are a long-legged, ugly breed, allowed to run wild and pick up whatever food they can get. I never saw, at any native cottage or farm, a pig penned up or put to fatten, and yet the natives are very fond of hog's flesh, and never hold any feast or festival without this meat constituting the chief and most approved dishes. ”

“ The most numerous, or at least the most often seen, as it lies about our enclosures, is the common thorn-hog. It is the largest of the wild pigs, long-bodied and flat-sided, in colour much the hue of the mud in which it wallows. To the agriculturist it is the greatest pest, destroying or damaging all kinds of crops, and routing up the gardens. ”

“ Fear and necessity seem to give more instinct and sentiment to wild hogs, for the young are more attached to their mother, who also appears more attentive to them than does the domestic sow. In the rutting season the male follows the female, and generally stays about a month with her in the thickest and most solitary parts of the forest: he is then more fierce than ever, and becomes [298] perfectly furious if another male endeavours to occupy his place, in that case they fight, wound, and sometimes kill each other. ”