32B Mr. Home's Observations on the grinding Teeth 
The wild bbar of Germany, from living in a savage state, 
cannot have its natural life appreciated with any accuracy ; but, 
if we may credit the accounts recorded, of the size to which it 
grows, it may be presumed that many years are necessary for 
that purpose. 
The following statements upon this subject, have been com- 
municated to me by Mr. Best, from Hanover. 
In the year 1581, a boar was killed near Koningsberg, in 
Prussia, of six hundred pounds weight. 
In 1507, one was killed in the dukedom of Wirtemberg, 
seven feet three inches long, by five feet three inches high. The 
length of the head was twenty-three inches. 
From these accounts of the enormous size of the wild boar in 
the 16th century, it cannot be doubted that the animal, w'here 
its haunts are not disturbed by hunters, lives to a great age ; 
if that were not the case, the mode by which its teeth are 
renewed, would be entirely unnecessary. 
A boar of this description, matured in its native forests, when 
it arrived at the age of 60 or 100 years, possessed of the strength 
and sagacity to be acquired in that time, must have been an 
animal more formidable than any which are at present to be 
met with ; and, when it made occasional excursions into the 
nearest cultivated lands, it must have excited the greatest degree 
of terror and alarm among the inhabitants. 
Before the use of fire-arms, it is not at all improbable that 
such an animal should drive before it the peasantry of a whole 
district; and that the boldest warriors should be solicited to come 
from the neighbouring cities, to put a stop to its ravages. 
The histories of this kind which are to be met with in 
the works of the ancient poets and historians, are therefore not 
