A Peccary Hunt on the Nueces. 351 



numbers. On this particular Frio ranch the last little 

 band had been killed nearly a year before. There were 

 three of them, a boar and two sows, and a couple of the 

 cowboys stumbled on them early one morning while .out 

 with a dog. After half a mile's chase the three peccaries 

 ran into a hollow pecan tree, and one of the cowboys, 

 dismounting, improvised a lance by tying his knife to the 

 end of a pole, and killed them all. 



Many anecdotes were related to me of what they had 

 done in the old days when they were plentiful on the 

 ranch. They were then usually found in parties of from 

 twenty to thirty, feeding in the dense chaparral, the sows 

 rejoining the herd with the young very soon after the 

 birth of the latter, each sow usually having but one or two 

 at a litter. At night they sometimes lay in the thickest 

 cover, but always, where possible, preferred to house in 

 a cave or big hollow log, one invariably remaining as a 

 sentinel close to the mouth, looking out. If this senti- 

 nel were shot, another would almost certainly take his 

 place. They were subject to freaks of stupidity, and 

 were pugnacious to a degree. Not only would they fight 

 if molested, but they would often attack entirely without 

 provocation. 



Once my friend Moore himself, while out with another 

 cowboy on horseback, was attacked in sheer wantonness 

 by a drove of these little wild hogs. The two men were 

 riding by a grove of live-oaks along a wood-cutter's cart 

 track, and were assailed without a moment's warning. 

 The little creatures completely surrounded them, cutting 

 fiercely at the horses' legs and jumping up at the riders' 



