148 THROUGH THE BRAZILIAN WILDERNESS 



lead, suddenly stopped and pointed downward. We were 

 riding along a grassy intervale between masses of forest, 

 and he had found the fresh track of a herd of big pec- 

 caries crossing from left to right. There were apparently 

 thirty or forty in the herd. The small peccaries go singly or 

 in small parties, and when chased take refuge in holes or 

 hollow logs, where they show valiant fight; but the big pec- 

 caries go in herds of considerable size, and are so truculent 

 that they are reluctant to run, and prefer either to move 

 slowly off chattering their tusks and grunting, or else ac- 

 tually to charge. Where much persecuted the survivors 

 gradually grow more willing to run, but their instinct is 

 not to run but to trust to their truculence and their mass- 

 action for safety. They inflict a fearful bite and frequently 

 kill dogs. They often charge the hunters and I have heard 

 of men being badly wounded by them, while almost every 

 man who hunts them often is occasionally forced to scramble 

 up a tree to avoid a charge. But I have never heard of a 

 man being killed by them. They sometimes surround the 

 tree in which the man has taken refuge and keep him up 

 it. Cherrie, on one occasion in Costa Rica, was thus kept 

 up a tree for several hours by a great herd of three or four 

 hundred of these peccaries; and this although he killed 

 several of them. Ordinarily, however, after making their 

 charge they do not turn, but pass on out of sight. Their 

 great foe is the jaguar, but unless he exercises much cau- 

 tion they will turn the tables on him. Cherrie, also in 

 Costa Rica, came on the body of a jaguar which had evi- 

 dently been killed by a herd of peccaries some twenty-four 

 hours previously. The ground was trampled up by their 

 hoofs, and the carcass was rent and slit into pieces. 



