562 



Jerdon, on those of a sedge that is found on the edges of tanks. 

 They turn up the soft ground with their snouts when rooting 

 about for food, and leave marks easily recognized. No animals are 

 more destructive to crops. The food of wild pigs is, however, not 

 absolutely restricted to vegetables ; they have several times been 

 observed to feed on dead animals, and Mr. Peal states that in 

 Assam they dig out and eat the fish that bury themselves in mud 

 during the dry season. Wild pigs feed much at night, but they 

 are less nocturnal in tracts where they can feed without disturb- 

 ance after sunrise. 



The speed of a wild pig is considerable, but not for a long 

 distance ; on any practicable ground either boar or sow may be 

 caught by a fair horse within a moderate distance. Spearing hogs, 

 or " pigsticking" as it is commonly calledjn India, is unquestionably 

 the finest sport in the country, and owes its excitement to the 

 circumstance that, as Sterndale justly remarks, a boar is perhaps 

 the most courageous of all wild animals, and generally fights to 

 the death, receiving spear after spear and charging horseman after 

 horseman with reckless gallantry. Several instances are on record 

 of desperate fights between a large boar and a tiger, and in not a 

 few the tiger has been killed. Sterndale mentions two cases 

 within his own knowledge. McMaster relates an instance of a 

 boar charging, knocking over, and ripping a camel, and occasionally 

 even elephants are attacked. Yet a boar seldom makes an attack 

 without provocation. There is much difference in both the endur- 

 ance and courage of hogs in different parts of India, the large 

 heavy pig of Bengal having less taste for running and more for 

 fighting than the more lightly built animal of the Deccan or the 

 Punjab. 



"Wild pigs have a habit of cutting grass and making a kind of 

 shelter in which they are said to leave the young. Old boars 

 may sometimes be found in these lairs, as Simson states in his 

 ' Letters on Sport in Eastern Bengal.' 



Pigs are much more prolific than most of the Ungulata. The 

 period of gestation is about 4 mouths, and they, sometimes at all 

 events, breed twice in the year ; the number of young is usually 4 

 to 6 in 8. scrofa and probably the same in S. cristatus. The 

 European wild pigs breed in the second year and live from 20 to 

 25 years. 



375. Sus andamanensis. The Andaman Pig. 



Sus andamanensis, Blyth, J. A. S. B. xxvii, p. 267 (1858) ; xxviii, 

 p. 271 ; xxix, p. 103 ; id. Cat. p. 141 ; W. Sclater, Cat. p. 195. 



Tail very short. Animal covered with somewhat shaggy and 

 long bristles ; no distinct crest on the neck or back in the only skin 

 examined. Molars much less complex than in S. cristatus. The 

 hinder molar, above and below, shorter than the two preceding 

 molars together. 



