136 HABITS AND INSTINCTS OF ANIMALS. CHAP. V. 



he only sallies during the night, to graze on the ad- 

 joining herbage. With such habits, he requires no 

 other powers of defence, they would be altogether 

 unnecessary, and he is consequently without them. Of 

 all the pachydermatous quadrupeds, the pig and the 

 tapir seem to be the most defenceless ; yet the former, 

 which, in its wild state, is no other than the boar, is 

 confessed to be a formidable and savage opponent, 

 and the history of the latter is too little known to admit 

 cf clear elucidation. The peccaries, or wild hogs of 

 Surinam, are totally destitute of that courage which 

 renders the European boar such a formidable enemy to 

 the hunter, in a state of nature ; but, although it is 

 destitute of tusks, or of other weapons of defence, Na- 

 ture has provided for it another resource in case of 

 danger. This animal is particularly remarkable for 

 having, according to Stedman, an orifice on the back, 

 about one inch in depth, which contains a stinking 

 foetid liquor, which some compare to the smell of 

 musk, but which is so very disagreeable, that, the in- 

 stant the animal is killed, the natives take care to cut 

 away this part with a knife, to prevent its infecting the 

 flesh, which it would soon do, making it so disgusting 

 as not to be eatable.* 



(157.) The horn of the Indian rhinoceros (fig.4t4i.) t 



and, indeed, of all 

 the other species, 

 although short and 

 blunt, is one of the 

 most effective wea- 

 pons with which 

 Nature has armed 

 the ungulated or- 

 der of quadrupeds. 

 All who have seen 

 it in its native jun- 

 gles describe it as a most ferocious animal, capable of de- 

 feating the elephant (to which it seems to have a rooted 



* Stedman, vol. i. 370. 



