316 THE LIVING ANIMALS OF THE WORLD 



FhHi I, IV. P. Dande 



COLLARED PECCARY 



over the curve. These 

 animals are driven into 

 nets and speared by the 

 natives of Celebes, and 

 afford excellent sport, the 

 boars especially charging 

 viciously at their assailants. 



THE WART-HOGS 



If the babirusa of the 

 Malay Archipelago is a 

 sufficiently bizarre-looking 

 creature, the wart-hog of 

 Africa yields to none of 

 the wild pigs in sheer, 

 downright hideousness of 

 aspect. The WART-HOG 

 OF SOUTH AFRICA, the 

 VLAKTE-VARK (Pig of the 

 Plains) of the Boers, has 

 long been familiar to 

 hunters and naturalists. 

 Standing some 30 inches 

 in height, this wild swine 

 is distinguished by the 

 disproportionate size of 

 the head, extreme length, 



breadth, and flatness of the front of the face and muzzle, smallish ears, huge tusks, and the 

 strange wart-like protuberances from which it takes its name. Three of these wen-like 

 growths are found on each side' of the face. The tusks of the upper jaw, unlike the teeth 

 of the true pigs, are much larger than those protruding from the lower jaw. The lower 

 tusks seldom exceed 6 inches in length ; those of the upper jaw occasionally reach as much 

 as 20 inches over the curve. A pair from North-east Africa (Annesley Bay, on the Abyssinian 

 littoral) measure respectively 27 and 26 inches truly gigantic trophies. The skin of this 

 wild hog is nearly naked, except upon the neck and back, where a long, coarse mane of dark 

 bristly hair is to be observed. Wart-hogs, as their Dutch name implies, in the days when 

 game was plentiful, were often found in open country, on the broad grass-plains and karroos. 

 At the present day they are less often seen in the open. They run in small family parties, 

 usually two or three sows and their litters. The old boars, throughout a great part of the year, 

 prefer a more solitary existence. These animals, when pursued, usually betake themselves to an 

 open earth, not of their own making, and, slewing round sharply just as they enter, make 

 their way in hind end first. They afford no great sport to the hunter, and are usually 

 secured with a rifle-bullet. The flesh is fairly good eating, especially that of a young and 

 tender specimen. Speaking generally, wart-hogs are nothing like such fierce and determined 

 opponents as the wild boars of Europe and India, or even the bush-pig. They will, however, 

 charge occasionally, and have been known to attack and rip up a horse. A northern species 

 ^ELIAN'S WART-HOG is found in Abyssinia, Somaliland, and other parts of East Africa, 

 where especially in Abyssinia it roams the mountains and their vicinity, occasionally to 

 a height of 9,000 or 10,000 feet. There is little difference between this and the southern 

 form. Wart-hogs produce usually three or four young, and the sow makes her litter in 

 a disused burrow. Unlike those of the majority of wild swine, the young of the wart-hog are 

 uniformly coloured, having no white stripes or spots. 



Peccaries art the American representatives of the Swine, and are characterised by a large gland on 



the back 



