^ Beasts of Chase. 2 1 7 



Byron has an admirable line, " the lion and his tusky 

 rebels," for though the two animals are not found together 

 — except so infrequently that the error is not justified — the 

 "rebel" is one of the wild boar's most notable characters. 

 The tiger is his natural Raja, but he revolts at the first 

 menace of oppression. The jungle path is his as much as 

 the tiger's, he says, and if they meet, the pig as often as not 

 joins issue as to the right of way. " The native Shikarries 

 affirm that the wild boar will quench his thirst at the river 

 between two tigers, and I (Shakespeare) believe this to be 

 strictly the truth. The tiger and the boar have been heard 

 fighting in the jungle at night, and both have been found 

 dead alongside of one another in the morning." "Though 

 the wild hog often becomes the tiger's prey, it sometimes 

 falls a victim to the successful resistance of its intended 

 victim. I (Elliot) once found a full-grown tiger nearly 

 killed by the rip of a boar's tusk, and two similar instances 

 were related to me by a gentleman who had witnessed them, 

 one of a tiger, the other of a panther." 



Once upon a time the boar was lord of British woodlands, 

 and, as Thomson says — 



" The sad barbarian, roving, mixed 

 With beasts of prey, or for his acorn meal 

 Fought the fierce tusky boar." 



As a beast of chase it was extant in England up to the 

 Stuarts' time. 



According to Bell, "about the year 940 the laws of Hoel 

 Dha direct that it shall be lawful for the chief of his hunts- 

 men to chase the boar of the woods from the 5th of the 

 Ides of November (9th) until the Calends of December 

 (ist)." In the next century, Bell states that "the numbers 

 had perhaps begun to diminish, since a forest law of 

 William I., established in 1087, ordained that any who were 

 found guilty of killing the stag, the roebuck, or the wild 



