WILD PIGS 245 



Africa. This huge creature, the largest of the Pigs, has only been 

 known to science since 1904, when it was discovered, I believe, by 

 Captain R. Meinertzhagen, and since that time very few specimens 

 have been secured. In general appearance it differs from the Wart 

 Hog, not only in size, but in the enormous wart-like excrescences 

 protruding immediately below the eyes, and by the inconspicuous- 

 ness of the tusks, which in the one I saw were practically invisible. 

 The colour of this one was a decidedly reddish-brown, but that may 

 have been due to its having rolled in the dust, as it was of nearly 

 the same tone as the sandy clay of the district. Needless to say, I 

 was greatly delighted at such a stroke of good luck, for in my wildest 

 dreams I had never expected to have an opportunity of photograph- 

 ing this rare and very shy animal." 



PECCARIES. The Peccaries, of which there are two recognized 

 species, known as the Collared Peccary (Fig. 196) and the White- 

 Lipped, come between the Swine and the Hippopotami, and are, as 

 a matter of fact, the American cousins of the animals with whom 

 we have been so far concerned in this section. They have been 

 deemed worthy of assignment to a separate family, and they con- 

 stitute the only genus included in it. 



A characteristic feature that will at once be apparent is in regard 

 to the tusks, for, instead of being directed upwards as in the last 

 group under review, the Peccaries have their tusks directed down- 

 wards. They exhibit differences, too, in their hind-limbs, for 

 instead of having four toes, they have three only, whilst could we 

 explore inside the animal's "little Mary" we should find that that 

 part of the anatomy is not of simple construction as in the Old 

 World Swine, but "a complex one approaching that of the Rumi- 

 nants." In this, then, and other ways, the Peccaries are accorded 

 a higher position in the scale of animal life than their Old World 

 cousins, and they are "clearly one step in advance of their 

 allies. . . ." Further still, the Peccaries can at once be distin- 

 guished, at close quarters at any rate, by a beastly odorous oily 

 substance which is exuded from a large gland situate in the middle 

 of the back. 



Note the slender limbs of the Peccary shown in Fig. 196, the 

 absence of any visible tail ; also the small, tapering ears ; the bristles 

 with which the body is thickly clothed, and which form a mane on 

 the neck and a fringe on the throat ; and the long snout. 



The Collared Peccary is an inhabitant of America like its White- 



