240 
PASSIONAL ZOOLOGY. 
permit the boldest hunter to try the adventure. We must de- 
cide, however, for the moments are dear — every minute counts 
its victim. 
From the thicket is heard a formidable charivari, howls of pain, 
low snarls of vengeance, frantic barkings, growls of rage punc- 
tuated by strokes of those redoubtable castanets, the jaw-bones. 
The jays and pies, birds eminently fond of tattling and gossiping, 
already embroider the catastrophe with their discordant com- 
mentaries. The English hound tights well and long; the sight of 
blood, far from intimidating him, only inflames his wrath ; the 
theatre of the combat begins to enlarge. The earth and neigh- 
boring bushes are crimsoned. It is thirty-eight minutes past one. 
Is it the wild boar that is hunted or that hunts? No one 
knows. The barks of the surviving combatants indicate that the 
scene of the combat is changing. Yes — truly there is the solitaire 
charging on the pack and forcing them to retreat. 
Bravos for the solitaire ! But the Tarpeian Rock, alas 1 stands 
near the capitol. In the ardor of his attack the imprudent ani- 
mal has approached too near the border of his barricades. Fie 
has passed within shot of a hunter sworn to have the life of him, 
and who has dared to enter the thicket on all-fours to get at him. 
The beast falls — it is forty minutes past one — five dogs are ripped 
open, twelve grievously wounded, twelve slightly ; four minutes 
longer, and the entire pack would have been used up. 
This solitaire weighed four hundred and forty pounds ; he was 
sent to Paris to serve as an ornament for some museum. An Arab 
would have given much to have had his tusks to deck the breast- 
piece of his courser. 
Old Louis is not yet consoled for the loss of Floribaut and 
Per^ante . . . the best leaders of a pack he has ever had in his 
life, he says. 
(The dog that one has just lost is always the best and most be- 
loved). I shared sincerely in his grief. 
‘^What a difference in the character of the bears of old times 
and the wild boars of this said I to myself on the evening of this 
memorable day. 
I resume in few words the principles of the wild boar hunt. 
