IN THE SWAMPS 181 



pounds lighter. Boar-hunting as sport attains to 

 its highest excellence in India, where it is as bad 

 form to shoot a boar as, in England, it is to shoot 

 a fox; in fact it is the law of the land that none 

 may be shot within forty miles of ridable ground. 

 Elsewhere, because of unridable country, or from 

 tradition, the boar is shot, and, having expe- 

 rience of both, I can say that boar-shooting is to 

 pig-sticking as pot is to flight bird shooting. 

 The peccaries differ little; the Mexican, called 

 " javalinas," have the more pig-like head; the 

 Texan are the smallest. Some sport is to be had 

 chasing peccaries in Texas, where, in small herds, 

 they keep ahead of the horses and dogs for a short 

 exhilarating burst of a couple of hundred yards, 

 when they tire and come to bay. But Texas pec- 

 cary hunting is not more serious than good fun, 

 although the pig is pugnacious and valiant. A 

 strong fighting dog can alone kill a peccary; and 

 there never was a dog which, single-handed, could 

 live through a finish fight with an Indian boar. 

 The Brazilian peccaries are the heaviest, travel in 

 herds of considerable numbers, and have more en- 

 durance and more fighting blood. 



Beating pigs up on foot to shoot them as they 

 rush from one patch of jungle into another has 

 its exciting moments, and its risks are of no trivial 

 order if you are called on to sustain a charge. I 



