WILD BOAE.] 



PIGS, 



[VILD EOA.It. 



between the woods and the high road, that 

 functionary appeared, emerging from his pig 

 penetralia. He went about the ceremonial in 

 which he was engaged, quite according to the 

 craft or etiquette of his order. The narrator 

 was requested to approach the preserve with 

 gravity and decorous legerity of foot. On- 

 wards he went, treading lightly, till he arrived 

 at a sort of park-paling inclosure, some six feet 

 high, and closely boarded. Entering there by 

 a gate, which closed behind him, he was shown 

 by an ancient forester, with a mortal blunder- 

 buss on his shoulder, and a rapier by his side, 

 into a thing like a cockney summer-house 

 upon stilts. Within this he was shut up 

 among much musty hay, there being a party of 

 tea in a room suitable only for two. On each 

 of the four sides of the square box were peep- 

 holes, through which these anxiously watched 

 the process of strewing around provisions of 

 corn and potatoes, that savoured very much of 

 the board frugal housewives at home spread 

 for their domestic circle of bacon. Long and 

 fearfully they waited for the guests. Some- 

 times the master of the ceremonies hinted tliat 

 perhaps they might not come at all ; and when 

 some of the musty hay-dust elicited a sneeze 

 from one of the party, he said he almost des- 

 j)aired of an arrival. But they were not des- 

 lined to be so disappointed. At the end of 

 an hour, spent about as agreeably as it 

 would be in the black hole of Calcutta, a 

 xidette at the peep-holes cautiously gave the 

 words, " Here they come !" And sure enough 

 there they did come, as orderly and well-be- 

 haved as if they had been borne in, in rashers, 

 and ornamented with poached eggs. First 

 marched a matron of the sty, accompanied by 

 a very numerous family— quaint little roasters 

 — like nothing in zoology so much as hedge- 

 hogs upon a large scale. Anon, through all 

 the loopholes opened for their admission, 

 trooped boars, singly, and in parties; but save 

 an occasional poke in the spare ribs, given by 

 the snake-like snout of some bully to a more 

 gently-disposed sow (the ladies were the most 

 quarrelsome), all went off very tamely. Thus 

 did the feast proceed till the potatoes and corn 

 were consumed, or so much of them as these 

 ravenous creatures were disposed to discuss ; 

 for all went to their afternoon meal aa gingerly 

 as a Paris elegante, 

 754 



The wild boars of Germany have, indeed, 

 the characteristics of a race not exactly bred to 

 pass from their nurses into sausages. They 

 give you the idea of a cross between the wolf 

 and domestic swine, but retain, apparently, no 

 trace of their savage origin, except a look of 

 cunning, and an apparent instinct of misan- 

 thropy. The least move made by the cooped-up 

 witnesses of this scene, was instantly detected 

 and acknowledged; but that was all. The 

 herd made no manifestation of fight. They 

 are as unpoetic and unvalorous a race as those 

 that frequent the trough of the English 

 farmer — at least, those that were there — and 

 their hunting offers no features of enterprise 

 beyond the slaying of pigeons at the Eed 

 House. "When a boar is to be shot, the herd 

 is enticed to dinner in the inclosure already 

 spoken of. Then, all but the devoted one 

 being scared away, the trap -door of the loop- 

 holes are closed, and the sportsman, ascending 

 a sort of box — like the distance-chair of our 

 English race-courses — quietly administers a 

 leaden pill to his patient. The reigning duke^ 

 though keeping up a herd of nearly two thou- 

 sand, kills a vast number this way every season 

 — such is the degeneracy of European wild hog 

 shooting: no horse-riding, no spear-pointing, 

 no dog-barking; nothing to give the excite- 

 ment of sport ; not even the smallest danger, 

 which we take to be one of the grandest ele- 

 ments that enter into the pleasures of hunting 

 this once formidable animal. 



An old French newspaper furnishes an ac- 

 count of an extraordinary boar killed near 

 Cognac, in Angoumois, He had been fre- 

 quently hunted, but unsuccessfully. His pro- 

 digious strength and powers of endurance 

 carried him, on all occasions, safely through 

 the various dangers to which his notoriety 

 had, from time to time, exposed him. He had 

 killed many valuable horses and dogs, and had 

 maimed, as well as destroyed, several men. 

 When at last victimised, several bullets, re- 

 ceived during previous conflicts, were found 

 between the skin and the flesh. This animal 

 is described by Sonuiui, who does not give his 

 exact measurement, but says that his size was 

 immense. He had a very long head, an elon- 

 gated and sharp snout, and a terrific mouth, 

 armed with tusks of unusual magnitude and 

 singular shape. The hair on his body was 



