PIGS 



Harking back to the subject of immigration, the nilloo 

 blossom of 1894 brought an extraordinary number of elk 

 and pig to the hills, and, over and above the usual tally of 

 elk and an occasional red deer, the hog score totalled over 

 eighty head during the blossom and the following year. 

 There was no need to mark down a pig or elk ; it was merely 

 a case of letting slip the hounds when you chanced to be 

 working in the neighbourhood of the jungle edge and a 

 find was a certainty, expectancy rising keen as to whether 

 it would be an elk or good old mountain boar, for, though 

 you can if you like hunt pig from Point Pedro to Dondra 

 Head, there is no boar to compare with the game old moun- 

 tain breed. The boar of the plains will stand a bit, and 

 run much, and is at times a nasty customer to tackle or 

 shift in thick scrub, but the boar of the mountains, a real 

 " Sanglier," will most often stand where he is roused, and 

 take his chance against all comers. 



Listen to that ! A nervous, disconnected challenge by 



a single hound, to which another opens, and still another, 



until the quiet of the forest is fairly broken by the short, 



erky chorus of the baying hounds and the savage war-cry 



of the great boar ! 



The dry bamboo wands rattle and creak, the Wanderoo 

 and red monkeys hoot, chatter, and swear, and the buck 

 elk, startled from his lair in the undergrowth, coughs out 

 his hoarse alarm as he moves away up the hill in search of 

 a more secure retreat. All the forest folk are awake and 

 agitated, adding each its mite to swell the clamour of the 

 noiseful strife, and oh ! the excitement of approaching a 

 " bay " such as this none but those who have had the 

 experience can possibly realise it ! 



First the dash forward, heedless of bush, trees, thorns, 

 or other impediments then, as one gets nearer, the slow, 



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