10 FOREST CREATURES. 



But generally the female jDarent fulfils her duties 

 with true maternal care, and leads and watches over her 

 offspring T\dth tenderness and anxious love. Directly 

 she hears one cry, she hastens to the spot. She calls 

 them around her as a hen her chickens if their safety 

 seems threatened; and when danger approaches she 

 sets off ^^ith her family scampering after, to lead them 

 where they will be secure. She does not stop till there 

 is no fear of j)ursuit. She leads the way and hastens 

 on with an occasional grunt, which may indicate dis- 

 pleasure at being disturbed, or an admonition to her 

 family to keep close. \Mien she stops, they stop, and 

 are as still as she. Though such matters must be new 



Not only had the mothers been seen to destroy their progeny, hut the 

 males also had begun to do so like-svise. They would knock down some 

 little sucking-pig, and then bite it, on which others would come to join 

 in the scuffle ; the presence of one, as it would seem, exciting the other. 

 The taste of blood appears to whet their appetite for more. 



The forester while sitting in the forest and watching their proceed- 

 ings from his look-out, ready to shoot any evil doer, and so put an end 

 to such unnatural deeds, observed an old boar approach a troop of young 

 pigs, and taking one in his mouth, as a pointer would carry a partridge, 

 trot off with it. As the boar was retreating he fired, and the bullet 

 passed along the ridge of the animal's back, ploughing it up from one 

 end to the other. The next day, while again on the watch, he saw the 

 same boar return to the same spot, and, though severely wounded, seize 

 on another little one with the intention of devouring it. This time, 

 however, a bullet sent him rolling in the dust. On opening the animal 

 the stomach was found filled with the small bones of the young pigs. 

 Indeed, it woidd seem that when they have once tasted this carnal food, 

 they refuse every other. 



