Andalucia and its Big Game 69 



more specialised system advisable wheo wild -boar only are 

 the objective. For whereas the aboriginal stag seeking a 

 "lie-up" wherein to pass the daylight hours was satisfied 

 by any sequestered spot that afforded shelter and shade from 

 the sun, that was never the case with the jungle-loving boar. 

 To the stag strong jungle and heavy brushwood were ever 

 abhorrent, handicapping his light build and branching antlers. 

 Clumps of tall reed-grass or three-foot rushes, a patch of cistus 

 or rosemary, amply fulfilled his diurnal ideals and requirements. 

 Nowadays, it is true, the expanded sense of danger, the increasing 

 pressure of modern life — even cervine life^ — force him to select 

 strongholds which offer greater security though less convenience. 

 The wild-boar, on the reverse, with lower carriage and pachy- 

 dermatous hide, instinctively seeks the very heaviest jungle 

 within his radius — the more densely briar-matted and impene- 

 trable the better he loves it. 



Many such holts — some of them may he but a few yards in 

 extent — are necessarily passed untried both by dogs and men 

 when eno-ao-ed in "drivino-" extended areas, sometimes miles 

 of consecutive forest and covert. The somnolent boar hears 

 the passing tumult, lifts a grisly head, grunts an angry soliloquy, 

 and goes to sleep again, secure. Another day you have returned 

 expressly to pay specific attention to him. In brief space 

 he has diagnosed the difference in attack. Instantly that boar 

 is alert, ready to repel or scatter the enemy, come who may, on 

 two lesis or four. 



HOOPOES 



On the lawn at Jerez, Marcli 19, 1910. 



