70 SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OF MAMMALIA. 



lair. At certain seasons, indeed, the wild boar is very 

 savage, and should he meet a rival the most sanguinary 

 combat ensues. 



In the month of December or January each male 

 attaches himself to the society of a chosen female, whom 

 he accompanies in the deepest glens of the forest for 

 about thirty days. When about to produce her young, 

 the female seeks some undisturbed retreat remote from the 

 haunts of the male, who, it appears, exhibits a propensity 

 to devour her progeny if he discover the litter. (Fig. 34.) 

 To her young the female is a most attentive mother ; she 

 suckles them for three or four months, and they remain 

 with her for a long time : an aged female is sometimes 

 seen followed by several families, among which are some 

 of the age of two or three years. These young rovers the 

 French hunters call betes de compagnie. The wild boar 

 seldom stirs from his lair during the day, and may there- 

 fore be regarded as in some degree nocturnal ; on the 

 approach of twilight, he rouses from his indolent slumbers, 

 and sets out in quest of food, which consists of acorns, 

 beech-mast, grain, different vegetables, and roots ; in 

 search of the latter, he ploughs up the ground with his 

 snout : corn-fields in the vicinity of forests where wild 

 hogs exist often suffer extensively from their nightly in- 

 cursions. The wild boar, though not truly carnivorous, 

 does not refuse animal matters which chance may throw 

 in his way : he does not however ordinarily attack and 

 kill others for the sake of their flesh, but only devours 

 what he may meet with in his rambles. In the morn- 

 ing the wild boar returns to his lair in the thickest 

 and most gloomy part of the forest, under a rock, in a 

 cave, or under the canopy of gnarled and intertwined 

 branches. When roused by the hunter and his dogs, the 

 old boar retreats sullenly and slowly, gnashing his teeth, 

 foaming with anger, and often stopping to receive his 

 pursuers, on whom he often rushes with sudden impe- 

 tuosity, striking with his tusks, goring dogs and men, and 

 scattering terror around. W^hen the boar turns upon 

 a pack, the foremost dogs are sure to suffer, and seve- 

 ral will fall by as many strokes. (Fig. 35.) An 



