THE WILD HOG : DESTROYER OF REPTILES. 235 
cions gift of tlie European navigators to the savage peoples. He 
is one of the most powerful elements of civilization and of pro- 
gress. The liog, which lives on every thing, and whose fecundity 
is prodigious, accommodates himself to all climates except those of 
the frigid zone, where the earth hardened by cold, does not permit 
him to exercise his industry of a plowman. Except there, it is 
now met with by numerous masses over the whole surface of con- 
tinents and of islands. 
It is an innocent animal, that makes war only on reptiles, field 
mice, and moles, and generally those parasitical species hostile to 
man. The wild hogs of America daily destroy an enormous quan- 
tity of moccasins and rattlesnakes. 
The hog has been gifted by nature with a prodigious subtlety of , 
smell. He used to discover the truffle hidden in the earth, and to 
show it to man, before the dog carried off from him this speciality. 
Asiatic India, the great isles of Sunda, and Africa, from the Cape 
of Good Hope to Cape Matifoux, are full of wild boars. Our re- 
gency of Algiers was still very rich some years since in these pro- 
ducts. The wild boar of the European forests is the largest in 
the world, and most powerful in his weapons. Some of them 
weigh five hundred pounds. 
Their venison is also most delicate. The acorn, beloved of the 
hog, and which he gathers abundantly in our forests in autumn, is 
the nourishment, par excellence y of the species. The acorn acts 
vigorously on the hog, both morally and physically. 
The acorn fed wild boar is not very amiable in his humor. The 
death fights are more dramatic in October and November than at 
any other seasons of the year. Remark that the acorn is the, fruit 
which symbolizes avarice, like the hog. 
The sows rut in December and bring forth toward the end of 
March. The litter is proportioned to the age of the animal ; the 
young mothers are content to raise three or four pigs, the old 
ones half a score. 
The young wild boar preserves the name of pig as long as he 
wears the livery, about five or six months. After his fourth year 
he is called a solitaire. With age his tusks curve and lose their 
cutting edge. These tusks are four in number. The two most 
