352 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
Such hunting expeditions were generally fatal to some of the 
dogs, and occasionally to one or more of the hunters. Such was 
the case with Robert de Vere, ninth Earl of Oxford, who was 
killed in 1895 by the Boar he was pursuing. 
The knight of Chetwode, then, who from benevolent motives 
encountered and slew the Boar that ravaged his neighbourhood, 
deserved to be richly rewarded ; and what reward could be more 
appropriate than the privilege of claiming a yearly toll over those 
roads which he had thus rendered secure? Perhaps, too, the 
exacting of the toll for nine days was to commemorate the period 
during which the gallant knight persisted before he achieved his 
object. 
Such customs as the Rhyne Toll are not without their uses. 
They are perpetual memorials, perhaps more convincing than 
written history, of the dangers which surrounded our ancestors, 
and from which our country has happily been so long delivered 
that we can now scarcely believe they ever existed.” 
In the opinion of sportsmen who have had experience in 
hunting the Wild Boar, whether in India (where “ pig sticking ” 
is a favourite amusement) or in other countries, no wild animal is 
harder to kill, being most tenacious of life, and offering a most 
stubborn resistance when brought to bay. The correctness of 
this assertion has been well illustrated by a well-known Indian 
sportsman, Capt. Shakespeare, in an account of a personal ad- 
venture with a Boar in India, which is so graphically written as 
to deserve quotation here :— 
‘‘ While beating the sugar-canes (he says) for Wild Hogs, a 
few miles from Hingolu, a villager came and said, ‘If you want to 
see a Hog, come with me’; and leading the way over the brow of 
a hill, pointed out an object in a field below, that in the mist of 
the morning appeared like a large blue rock, much too large for 
a Hog. However, the object presently got on its legs, and dissi- 
pated every doubt existing as to its character. About a hundred 
yards distant from the animal was a fissure in the hills, thickly 
wooded, and here, no doubt, was the Boar’s lair; and if he took 
alarm and rushed thither, it would be next to impossible to dis- 
lodge him. A savage Boar in his stronghold is as difficult to 
oust as the Grizzly Bear from his winter cave in the Rocky 
Mountains. He constantly rushes out, knocks over and gores 
the beaters nearest the mouth of his retreat, and then skips back 
again before there is the shadow of a chance of spearing him.” 
