TIIE PECCARY'S LAIR. 177 



quills of the porcupine, immediately lie is angered, and 

 in this he more resembles the boar than any other of the 

 race. The hair of the peccary is coloured in zones or 

 rings, the part nearest to the skin being white, and 

 the tip of a chocolate shade. The peccaries have no tail. 

 This appendix is replaced by a fleshy protuberance, which 

 the negroes of Texas call the "hind navel." Another 

 peculiarity is, that the navel properly so called is not 

 found in these animals in its ordinary place. On the 

 back is a small, shapeless rugosity, containing a deposit 

 of musky liquid, which evaporates on the animal's grow- 

 ing irritated, as is the case with the civet and the nmsk- 

 cat of South America. 



The shoulders, the neck, and the head of the peccary 

 belong to the wild boar ; but the extreme part of the 

 groin is generally slenderer and more delicate. The feet 

 and legs resemble those of the wild boar. His favourite 

 food is berries, acorns, roots, sugar-canes, seed, and rep- 

 tiles of all kinds. 



We have spoken at some length of the conformation 

 and habits of this animal ; and it still remains for us to 

 allude to the curious fashion in which he takes his rest. 

 His lair is always situated among the tufted, luxuriant, 

 and inextricable cane-bushes, which flourish in marshy 

 localities, round lofty and venerable trees. The wind 

 and the lightning seem to attack in preference those iso- 

 lated oaks and maples, the giants of the Texan forests, 

 which one sometimes meets with prostrate on the river- 

 bank, and covered with a network of lianas and wild 

 vines. The trunks of these trees, which ordinarily mea- 

 sure twenty-five to thirty feet in circumference, are nearly 

 always hollow, and serve as a night abode for the pcc- 



(414) 12 



