18 J. E. HABTING ANIMALS WHICH HATE BECOME 



*' Cam-torey " and " Coire-torey," i.e. the hill and the hollow of 

 boars; in the same county is the boar's loch, " Loch-an-tuire."*" 



In Ireland wild boars were at one time common, but have long 

 been extinct there. According to Giraldus Cambrensisf they 

 existed in vast numbers, but were a small, deformed, and cowardly 

 race. Dr. Scouler asserts that they continued to be plentiful in 

 Ireland down to the seventeenth century, but the exact date of their 

 extinction he was unable to ascertain. 



Tusks of wild boars dug up in Ireland, according to Thompson, 

 are often of goodly dimensions. 



Several attempts have been made to re-introduce wild boars for 

 the purpose of hunting ; but from various causes none of the experi- 

 ments proved very successful. In some instances the animals throve 

 well and increased, but the opposition of those whose crops they 

 damaged was fatal to their existence for any length of time. 

 Charles the First imported wild boars from Germany and turned them 

 out in the New Forest. At a later period, as recorded by Gilbert 

 White, General Howe turned out some German wild boars in the 

 forest of Wolmer and Alice Holt, of which he had a grant from the 

 crown, but, as White says, "the country rose upon them and de- 

 stroyed them." X The late Earl of Fife, who tried many experi- 

 ments in introducing different animals into the Forest of Mar, 

 turned out some wild boars by the advice of the Margrave of 

 Anspach while at Mar Lodge on a visit, but the experiment in this 

 case did not answer for want of acorns, their principal food.§ Forty 

 years ago Mr. Drax, of Charborough Park, Dorsetshire, made a 

 similar experiment. Writing in Sept. 1879, he says: "I fenced 

 them in with a wood paling in the wood where I built the present 

 tower, and used to shoot them. The latter part of the time I kept 

 them at Morden Park, and bred a lot of them, feeding them on 

 turnips and corn. They were very savage and troublesome, how- 

 ever, to keep within bounds, and I was therefore obliged to kill 

 them. They were good eating when fed upon corn." || 



At Chartley Park, Staffordshire, whore, 300 years ago, as we learn 

 from Erdeswick, wild swine roamed at large, an attempt was 

 made by the present Earl Ferrers to reintroduce these animals, for 

 which purpose he imported a boar and sow. The experiment, 

 however, unluckily failed, since both the animals died soon after 

 their arrival. 



The exact date of the extinction of the wild boar in Britain is 

 uncertain. It has been fixed at 1620,^ but the authority for the 

 statement is not furnished, and there is evidence of its having 

 existed in Staff'ordshire, as we shall presently show, at least fifty 

 years later. In 1617 it was still to be found in Lancashii'e, for 



* ' Old Statistical Acct. of Scotland,' vol. ii, p. 478. 

 t ' TopogTaphia Hibernia;.' 

 X ' Nat. Hist. Selborne,' Letter be to Pennant. 

 § Scrope's 'Art of Deer-stalking,' p. 406. 



II Letter to Mr. J. C. Mansel-Pleydell. See also Blaine's ' Rural Sports,' 

 p. 406 (ed. 18.58). 

 H Boyd Dawkins, ' Cave Hunting,' pp. 7G, 78. 



