MAMMALS. 99 



Hawkstone, and other places, and specimens of these 

 are in the Museum at Shrewsbury. There is documen- 

 tary evidence of the existence of the Wild Boar in the 

 neighbouring County of Stafford, as recently as the end 

 of the sixteenth century, and it probably disappeared 

 from Shropshire about that time. In a state of nature, 

 this animal is less omnivorous than our tame pigs, and 

 feeds mainly upon vegetable matter such as acorns, 

 beech-mast, etc., but it is fond of roots, and will turn 

 up the ground with its snout in search of them. It 

 chiefly frequents forest -land, especially such as contain 

 marshy hollows, going about in small droves (or 

 " sounders,") as a rule, but old Boars are solitary in 

 their habits. It is these old " solitaries " that afford the 

 most exciting sport, for they are full of courage, and 

 charge again and again without the slighest hesitation, 

 even when severely wounded in several places. The 

 wild sow is said to produce from six to ten young at 

 a birth, and to have two or three litters in a year. At 

 the present time the Wild Boar is more numerous in 

 the Black Forest than elsewhere in Europe. The 

 average height of an adult male is about 3 feet, and 

 the length of the tusk (lower canine), when extracted 

 from the jaw, about eight or nine inches. It is a curious 

 fact that the young of the Wild Boar are marked 

 with light longitudinal stripes, though these are rarely 

 observed in the tame pig. The Wild Boar is also more 

 thickly covered with bristly hair than the pig, and is 

 of a dark iron-gray colour. 



