WART-HOGS 
85 
CH. IV] 
Potha I shot a wart-hog. It was a good-sized sow, 
which, in company with several of her half-grown 
offspring, was grazing near our line of march; there 
were some thorn-trees which gave a little cover, and I 
killed her at a hundred and eighty yards, using the 
Springfield, the lightest and handiest of all my rifles. 
Her flesh was good to eat, and the skin, as with all our 
specimens, was saved for the National Museum. I did 
not again have to shoot a sow, although I killed half- 
grown pigs for the table, and boars for specimens. This 
sow and her porkers were not rooting, but were grazing 
as if they had been antelope; her stomach contained 
nothing but chopped green grass. Wart-hogs are 
common throughout the country over which we 
hunted. They are hideous beasts, with strange pro¬ 
tuberances on their cheeks ; and when alarmed they 
trot or gallop away, holding the tail perfectly erect, 
with the tassel bent forward. Usually they are seen in 
family parties, but a big boar will often be alone. They 
often root up the ground, but the stomachs of those we 
shot were commonly filled with nothing but grass. If 
the weather is cloudy or wet they may be out all day 
long, but in hot, dry weather we generally found them 
abroad only in the morning and evening. A pig is 
always a comical animal; even more so than is the case 
with a bear, which also impresses one with a sense of 
grotesque humour—and this notwithstanding the fact 
that both boar and bear may be very formidable 
creatures. A wart-hog standing alertly at gaze, head 
and tail up, legs straddled out and ears cocked forward, 
is rather a figure of fun ; and not the less so when, with 
characteristic suddenness, he bounces round with a grunt 
and scuttles madly off to safety. Wart-hogs are beasts 
of the bare plain or open forest, and though they will 
