November — A Pet Wild Boar, 25 



The inhabitants consisted of the forester and his son, 

 a lad of fifteen, who seemed three years younger. They 

 welcomed us with a surprised politeness, natural under 

 the circumstances ; but we told our story, and this led 

 to a more frank and intimate acquaintance. Our new 

 host lived too far from the Val Ste. Vdronique to know 

 much about our extremity of the forest, and my name 

 appeared to be unknown to him, but he treated us with 

 an equal hospitality in which there was a great deal 

 of simple dignity. The conversation turned upon our 

 adventure, and when we told him about the little wild 

 boar, and displayed the victim, he gave a peculiar whis- 

 tle, and immediately a beast of the same species, a little 

 older, came from a dark corner in the hut and sought 

 his caresses like a dog. He had killed the sow in the 

 forest, and taken this youngling home, at first with no 

 definite intention of adopting it, but the creature had 

 become so familiar that it now formed part of his house- 

 hold. The wild boar, if taken young, is very easily 

 domesticated, and capable of strong attachment to its 

 human friends. The men present immediately began 

 to mention other instances of boars that had been taken 

 and brought up in the same way, and one was men- 

 tioned which regularly followed its master to the village 

 church, and would not be excluded, but came at last, by 

 the toleration of the cure, to hear mass like a Christian ; 

 till finally it grew to an alarming size, and was sold to 

 a travelling menagerie for the sum of seventy francs. 

 What a transition for a poor creature, that had loved its 

 friends and enjoyed great freedom in their society, to 



