256 MODERN PIG-STICKING 



I have twice been bitten in the foot by pig. This 

 is due to my practice, which I advise you to copy, 

 of always putting my boot to take the hog's cuts if 

 I cannot hold him off, and he looks like ripping my 

 horse. I have saved my horse several times like 

 this. Your boots will be cut, possibly yourself, but 

 you save your horse. The first time I was bitten 

 the boar got through the sole of my boot and dented 

 the stirrup iron which had engaged his upper teeth. 

 Major (now Colonel) Browne, R.H.A., and others 

 were there. The second time the boar got half 

 my foot in his mouth, and I had to lever his mouth 

 open when he was dead. Both were good boar 

 with good tushes, but No. 2 had no lower tushes. 

 This was with Captain Salt, R.H.A., Mr. Macbrayne, 

 17th Lancers, and others. 



Apart from these instances, it is, of course, a 

 well-established fact that boar, good boar too, do 

 sometimes bite instead of using their tushes. Why 

 this is so I cannot say. I have never heard of a 

 pig biting who had not been severely wounded. 

 It may be that in such cases they forget their real 

 weapon, and revert to more primitive methods, 

 just as one knows of men who have thrown away 

 sword or pistol, and used their clenched fists instead. 

 I suppose nature made teeth first, and then, later, 

 one grew into a tush. 



The most curious instance of biting I know of 

 occurred last year. Major Gaussen, 3rd Skinner's 

 Horse, was beating an island in a big canal. The 

 main stream is some fifty yards wide ; the cut which 

 makes the island is only about ten yards wide. 

 Gaussen took post on the latter, and had his native 

 officer, Ressaidar Sobha Singh, guarding the main 

 stream with instructions to turn back any boar 



