82 THE WILDERNESS AND JUNGLE 



the infuriated animal. On another occasion 

 a drove of no fewer than thirteen boars was 

 seen in the moonlight in the outskirts of 

 Esneux, a village in the province of Liege. 



Shooting boars is not a very dangerous 

 sport, because they do not, for all their pluck, 

 charge unless wounded, and also because care 

 is taken to post the guns in such safe spots 

 that it would not much matter if they did. 

 Still, accidents do occasionally happen, in spite 

 of these precautions. One day the veteran 

 Prince Regent Luitpold of Bavaria was shoot- 

 ing hogs, and one of his guests missed a boar. 

 The boar did not miss him, however, but laid 

 him on his back and so ripped his legs that he 

 was disabled for weeks at Schloss Rohrbrunn. 



The technical name for these animals in 

 French venery is betes noires (which suggests 

 blackbeetles), and there is in that country a 

 very dangerous practice of making pitfalls to 

 catch them in. These traps, concealed by 

 branches, are a constant source of danger to 

 hunting-men. Count Joseph Lahens used 

 to keep a pack of the famous Piqu' Hardi 

 Gascon Batards solely to hunt wild boars in 

 the Landes and Gironde. These are long- 

 eared, powerful hounds, standing twenty-four 

 inches, and they hunt the boar with wonderful 

 scent and with a courage that almost matches 

 its own.] 



