280 THE LIVING ANIMALS OF THE WORLD 
over the curve. These 
animals are driven into 
nets and speared by the 
natives of Celebes, and 
afford excellent sport, the 
boars especially charging 
viciously at their assailants. 
THE WART-HOGS 
If the babirusa of the 
Malay Archipelago is a 
sufficiently bizarre-looking 
creature, the wart-hog of 
Africa yields to none of 
the wild pigs in sheer, 
downright hideousness of 
aspect. The WART-HOG 
oF SOUTH AFRICA, the 
VLAKTE-VARK (Pig of the 
Plains) of the Boers, has 
long been familiar to 
ets Ss 2% hunters and naturalists. 
Pheto by H’. P. Dando Standing some 30 inches 
COLLARED PECCARY in height, this wild swine 
: ; ; : ; is distinguished by the 
Peccaries are the American representatives of a ees and are characterised by a large gland on disproportionate size of 
the head, extreme length, 
breadth, and flatness of the front of the face and muzzle, smallish ears, huge tusks, and the 
strange wart-like protuberances from which it takes its name. Three of these wen-like 
growths are found on each side of the face. The tusks of the upper jaw, unlike the teeth 
of the true pigs, are much larger than those protruding from the lower jaw. The lower 
tusks seldom exceed 6 inches in length; those of the upper jaw occasionally reach as much 
as 20 inches over the curve. A pair from North-east Africa (Annesley Bay, on the Abyssinian 
littoral) measure respectively 27 and 26 inches —truly gigantic trophies. The skin of this 
wild hog is nearly naked, except upon the neck and back, where a long, coarse mane of dark 
bristly hair is to be observed. Wart-hogs, as their Dutch name implies, in the days when 
game was plentiful, were often found in open country, on the broad grass-plains and karroos. 
At the present day they are less often seen in the open. They run in small family parties, 
usually two or three sows and their litters. The old boars, throughout a great part of the year, 
prefer a more solitary existence. These animals, when pursued, usually betake themselves to an 
open earth, not of their own making, and, slewing round sharply just as they enter, make 
their way in hind end first. They afford no great sport to the hunter, and are usually 
secured with a rifle-bullet. The flesh is fairly good eating, especially that of a young and 
tender specimen. Speaking generally, wart-hogs are nothing like such fierce and determined 
opponents as the wild boars of Europe and India, or even the bush-pig. They will, however, 
charge occasionally, and have been known to attack and rip up a horse. A northern species 
— AELIAN’S WART-HOG — is found in Abyssinia, Somaliland, and other parts of East Africa, 
where — especially in Abyssinia— it roams the mountains and their vicinity, occasionally to 
a height of 9,000 or 10,000 feet. There is little difference between. this and the southern 
form. Wart-hogs produce usually three or four young, and the sow makes her litter in 
a disused burrow. Unlike those of the majority of wild swine, the young of the wart-hog are 
uniformly coloured, having no white stripes or spots. 
