It- f 



CHAPTER IX. 



THE WILD HOG. 



THE COLLARED PECCAEY ; DTCOTYLES TORQUATUS — THE COMMON HOG; 



SUS SCROFA. 



THE peccary is the only native American wild hog, 

 although there are now thousands of mid pigs 

 in the forests, the descendants of the common or 

 domestic hogs which have strayed away from the set- 

 tlers, and whose descendants are now as much wild 

 boars as any to be found in the great German or Polish 

 forests. 



The form of the peccary is not unlike that of the 

 domestic hog, though it is short, compact, and very 

 much smaller. 



In Texas they go by the name of Mexican hogs, and 

 in the early settlement of the country they frequently 

 proved very troublesome ; the settlers, when hunting 

 game in the forest, or looking after their live stock, 

 being often surprised by the attack of half-a-dozen 

 peccaries, who put them up the nearest tree, and 

 often kept them there for hours. As these hogs proved 

 most destructive to the cornfields, a general war was 



