A Peccary Hunt on the Nueces. 359 



known of several cases of horses being cut, however, and 

 dogs are very commonly killed. Indeed, a dog new to the 

 business is almost certain to get very badly scarred, and 

 no dog that hunts steadily can escape without some injury. 

 If it runs in right at the heads of the animals, the proba- 

 bilities are that it will get killed ; and, as a rule, even two 

 good-sized hounds cannot kill a peccary, though it is no 

 larger than either of them. However, a wary, resolute, 

 hard-biting dog of good size speedily gets accustomed to 

 the chase, and can kill a peccary single-handed, seizing it 

 from behind and worrying it to death, or watching its 

 chance and grabbing it by the back of the neck where it 

 joins the head. 



Peccaries have delicately moulded short legs, and their 

 feet are small, the tracks looking peculiarly dainty in con- 

 sequence. Hence, they do not swim well, though they 

 take to the water if necessary. They feed on roots, 

 prickly pears, nuts, insects, lizards, etc. They usually 

 keep entirely separate from the droves of half-wild swine 

 that are so often found in the same neighborhoods ; but 

 in one case, on this very ranch where I was staying, a 

 peccary deliberately joined a party of nine pigs and asso- 

 ciated with them. When the owner of the pigs came up 

 to them one day the peccary manifested great suspicion 

 at his presence, and finally sidled close up and threatened 

 to attack him, so that he had to shoot it. The ranchman's 

 son told me that he had never but once had a peccary 

 assail him unprovoked, and even in this case it was his 

 dog that was the object of attack, the peccary rushing out 

 at it as it followed him home one evening through the 



