HISTORY OF CORBIN PRESERVE — ^MANVILLE 437 



the birds over the winter. The success of this release encouraged the 

 State in 1895 to undertake a program of introducing exotic game birds. 

 New Plampshire, however, has never been well suited to pheasants; 

 overwintering birds still require supplemental annual stocking to pro- 

 vide a huntable population. 



Beaver, Castor canadensis. — Beaver had earlier been extirpated in 

 the area. One pair was introduced, and soon caused damage to timber 

 for a mile back from one stream. Corbin, however, decided to keep 

 them, and the species still exists in the park. 



Wild boar, Sils scrofa. — A dozen European boar, from the Black 

 Forest of Germany, were purchased from Carl Hagenbeck of Ham- 

 burg. One died on the high seas, and the other 11 were released on 

 the preserve in 1889. By 1891 they had increased to three or four 

 herds, seen simultaneously at different localities by the gamekeepers. 

 Several writers speak of two lots of introduced boar, one of them 

 the larger, darker Kussian race. Squires speaks of 14 and Spears of 

 18, in the early years ; it is possible that some Russian stock, probably 

 from the Ural Mountains, comprised the lot received in September 

 1891. Certainly free interbreeding soon obscured any racial differ- 

 ences. By the autumn of 1896 they numbered not less than 500. There 

 was a failure of the beech crop that year, and the boar were not arti- 

 ficially fed during the winter of 1896-97 ; all but 50 of them perished. 

 Thereafter they recovered satisfactorily and reached an estimated 

 population of 500 by 1903. 



The boar took naturally to the forests of the preserve where — except 

 for the corn they are fed in winter — they live off the land (pi. 4) . Per- 

 haps their rooting for food and destruction of insects contribute some- 

 what to the productivity of the soil. In winter they build large nests 

 of boughs or grass, resembling huge bird nests, where several may 

 sleep together or where the young may be bom. Their habits are de- 

 scribed in some detail by Baynes (1923). In Corbin's day they were 

 hunted from horseback with javelins, and were tracked with Austrian 

 boarsetters. In 1917, when staging its first municipal winter carnival, 

 the town of Newport featured a boar hunt on the preserve (Mahoney, 

 1959). Hunting, with prescribed bag limits and a 4-month open sea- 

 son, is the chief population control m the park. From 1948-55 a total 

 of 317 were taken, the largest number (79) in the 1951-52 season. A 

 boar hunt in the surrounding country is described by Lineaweaver 

 (1955). 



An unknown number of boar escaped soon after the park was estab- 

 lished, and persisted in the adjoining country, where they constitute 

 a hazard to crops. Still others escaped after the hurricane of 1938, 

 and a loose population exists within a radius of about 15 miles of the 

 preserve. In 1955, one was shot across the Connecticut River in Hart- 

 land, Vt. ( Angwin, 1955) , and another near Danbury, N.H. The State 



720-018 — 64 30 



