The Pig and Hippopotamus 



315 



will be found a most tough and courageous adversary, capable and willing to defend itself 

 stoutly against all foes. " They are," says Mr. F. Vaughan Kirby, who has had much 

 experience in hunting these animals, "expert swimmers and swift of foot, and can get over 

 the roughest ground at a great pace. There is no pluckier beast in Africa than a bush-pig, 

 and even a leopard will hesitate before attacking a full-grown boar. Like all wild creatures, 

 they have an instinctive dread of man, and will always make their escape from him if possible ; 

 but if surrounded or wounded and brought to bay, they appear to accept the situation with 

 stolid imperturbability, and die fighting with rare pluck, against all odds, grim and silent to 

 the last. . . . Face to face in the middle of a 'fast' bush, and only a Swazi ' stabbing-assegai ' 

 with which to kill him, ... I have seen an old boar, after receiving nine thrusts from those 

 terrible weapons, two of which were still fast in him, make a charge that scattered us 

 like chaff, and in three consecutive lunges lame one of our number for life, and disembowel 

 two of the finest ' pig-dogs ' I ever hunted with. In such encounters a boar inflicts terrible 

 wounds with his teeth, as well as with his tusks." Few men care to face a wart-hog on foot. 



Another bush-pig is 

 found in Madagascar, and is 

 known as EDWARDS' BUSH-PIG. 

 Its habits are very similar 

 to those of its brethren in 

 the neighbouring continent of 

 Africa. 



THE BABIRUSA. 



Quitting the true pigs, 

 we come now to perhaps the 

 very strangest and most 

 singular of all the great 

 tribe of swine. This is the 

 BABIRUSA, that curious and 

 grotesque creature found in 

 the island of Celebes, in the 

 Malay Archipelago. The 



name Babirusa signifies pig- Photo ly Scllolaitic P/loto Co>] 

 deer. It is 01 course a HEAD OF MALE WART-HOG. 



misnomer, and tne animal p ro fii e showing the large conical warty growths on the side of the face so characteristic of 



has no kinship whatever with these animals, 



the cervine race. The babi- 



rusa is a wild swine, having a dark slate-grey skin, very sparsely covered with hair along 

 the ridge of the spine. This skin is very extraordinarily wrinkled. The ears are much 

 smaller than is the case with other members of the swine group, while the tail is short, 

 straight, and lacks any semblance of tuft. The females have small tusks. In the boars the 

 tusks are most singularly and abnormally developed. From the upper jaw, instead of curving 

 from the side of the lips, the tusks grow from the centre of the muzzle, penetrate right 

 through the skin, and curve backwards often till they touch the forehead. The lower tusks 

 have also a strong curve, but are not so long as those of the upper jaw. Although thus 

 superabundantly provided with tushes, the babirusa is, as regards the rest of its teeth, less 

 well off, having only thirty-four, as against the forty-four of the European wild boar. In their 

 habits these singular pigs much resemble other wild swine, going in herds and frequenting 

 forest, jungle, and the banks of rivers. They are excellent swimmers. The young are, unlike 

 other wild swine in the infant state, unstriped. These animals are often found domesticated 

 about the dwellings of native chiefs in Celebes. The weight of a good male is as much as 

 128 Ibs. ; height at shoulder, 27 inches. The longest tusk recorded measures 17 inches 



[Parson's Green. 



