THE SOW STEALS AWAY. 215 



rendered it impossible for even a fox to have broken 

 away without being viewed ; and yet nearly thirty 

 Frenchmen contrived to let the huge sow trot out 

 over the open space near where she had entered, and 

 gain an immense start of us, before her absence was 

 discovered, into the continuous forest — her departure 

 alone being ascertained by a man's having accident- 

 ally crossed her slot, but no one knowing how long 

 she had been gone. As I well knew, she had no 

 hound on her line ; still, long after she must have 

 left the cover, the old French hounds continued a 

 clamorous cry occasionally, and in all directions, as 

 if they viewed her or thought she was after them — 

 for either fact produces a similar result. I am told 

 that hounds are more afraid of a wicked old sow than 

 of a boar, and I believe it. The former runs more 

 doggedly at them, and when she does get hold with 

 her jaws, she gives the full weight of her body to the 

 bite, and holds them compressed beneath her for 

 some time. 



The charge of the boar is made at a greater pace, 

 not so much in pursuit of an enemy as to knock 

 him out of the way and get rid of him. The tusk, if 

 it hits, is the most deadly, but the bite of the sow 

 more prolonged in its punishment, and her pursuit 

 more continuous. The headlong charge of a boar 



p 4 



