14 FOREST CEEATURES. 



but no plaint ever escapes him. The females and the 

 younger males form an exception, and when badly 

 hurt their sharp cries may be heard afar. 



Wild-boars do not see particularly well, and they 

 trust rather to their hearing and to their sense of smell 

 for protection against attack. They have a fine ear, 

 and the slightest unwonted sound is sufficient to make 

 them stop and listen. But they scent still more finely ; 

 and, as a chamois will do, if they come across a spot 

 where a man has recently stood, they will rush off as 

 though he still were present. * 



Like all forest-creatures they have their fixed paths, 

 which they always take in moving from one quarter to 

 another. As they go about in troops, the hill-sides have 

 such paths distinctly marked on them, where they are 

 accustomed to pass. Nor do they like changing their 

 wonted route for another. WTien disturbed and in 

 danger, they will unanimously make for some gap in a 

 paling or hedge, or for a narrow lane or deep hollow, 

 though a great distance off; and they keep to the lines 

 they have marked out for themselves with wonderful 

 pertinacity. 



* Haying once mounted a tree, the better to watcli the moyements of 

 the game as it strayed forth from the covert, I perceived a wild-boar 

 coming towards the foot of the oak amid whose branches I was sitting. 

 Directly he neared it he smelt the stem against which my feet had 

 rested in mounting ; and, perceiving the taint, was off in a moment, 

 scared, and with all possible haste. 



