WILD HOG. 
PLATE I. 
WILD BOAR and SOW, imported from Alentejo in Portugal, and presented to the Earl of Leicester 
by His Royal Highness the Duke of Sussex* 
The Wild Hog, Sus aper , is the inhabitant of the temperate and wanner parts of the Old Continent and its Islands. His 
colour varies with age, and in some cases with climate, but it is usually a dusky brown, with black spots and streaks. His 
skin is covered with coarse hairs or bristles, but with a soft wool intermixed, and with coarser and longer bristles upon the neck 
and spine, which he erects when in anger. He is a very bold and powerful creature, and becomes more fierce and indocile with 
age. He feeds on herbs, and delights in roots, which his nice sense of smell and touch enables him to find beneath the surface. 
He feeds, too, on animal substances, as worms and larvee, which he finds under ground, on the eggs of birds, and on the young 
of animals, which he comes upon in his progress, and even on snakes, which, though venomous, he attacks with impunity. He 
eats, too, of carrion, but very rarely, and perhaps only when pressed by hunger. Like other hoofed animals, he is unfitted to 
capture animals that secure themselves by flight. He dwells in moist and shady places, which he quits in search of food when the 
shades of evening fall, and he employs the night in search of food, grubbing up the ground in long ridges. He is swift of 
foot, keeping pace for a time with a horse at speed. His common pace is a walk or trot, though, when urged, he passes into 
the gallop. He readily descends steep places, notwithstanding his bulky form. He bites with prodigious force, and inflicts 
desperate wounds with his sharp and crooked tusks. He quickly bleeds to death, so that he is not so tenacious of life as the Bear 
and some other animals. 
The female carries her young for four months, or sixteen weeks. She produces a litter once in the year, and in much 
smaller numbers than when in the domestic state. She is rarely seen with the male but in the rutting season, which, in our 
latitudes, is in the months of December and January. She suckles her young for several months, and retains them for a yet 
longer time afterwards to protect them. When assailed, she defends her offspring with surprising courage, and the young re¬ 
ward her cares by a long attachment. She is often seen to be followed by several families, forming a troop formidable to their 
assailants, and destructive by their ravages to the vineyards and cultivated fields. When the young have acquired sufficient 
strength to protect themselves from their enemies, they generally assume the solitary habits of the race, and dwell apart in the 
recesses of the forest. The male is endowed with the singular instinct of seeking to destroy his own young at the birth, as if to 
prevent too great an increase of the numbers of his race. The female, conscious of the danger, seeks to conceal herself for a time 
after the young are born. 
There is something noble in the courage of this powerful and solitary creature. All his strength seems to be given him for 
self-defence. He injures no one, unless when disturbed in his retreat, or in the search of the food which his nature leads him to 
seek. He does not court a combat with enemies that thirst for his blood, but for the most seeks to secure himself by betaking 
himself to the nearest covert. If attacked by savage dogs, he sullenly retreats, turning often upon them, and driving them 
back by his formidable tusks. When wearied and tormented, and forced at length to fight for his life, he turns on his perse¬ 
cutors, and aims at vengeance. If struck by the spear or ball of his pursuers, he has been known to disregard all his other 
enemies, and single out his destroyer. When pursued by dogs, he rushes fiercely upon the foremost and strongest, maiming and 
killing numbers of the pack in an incredibly short time. In like manner, he dashes upon the foremost horseman, overthrowing 
the horse and rider in a moment. 
The hunting of the Wild Hog has been from early times a sylvan sport, familiar to the people of Asia and Europe. The 
classic writers of Greece and Rome abound with allusions to the chase of this dangerous creature. Homer, the magic of whose 
genius carries us back through thirty centuries to the homes and feelings of the rustic warriors of his country, refers to the grisly 
tenant of the woods in a multitude of passages that live in the memory of every scholar. Later writers inform us, that the prac¬ 
tice was to hunt him with large dogs, to encounter him with spears or javelins, and sometimes, it would seem, to drive him into 
nets or pallisades, in the manner pursued in Europe until our own times. During the middle ages, we have numerous accounts 
of the hunting of the Wild Boar. In England, the rude Anglo-Saxons brought to their new country the fondness for this 
sport which they had acquired in their native forests; and our chroniclers and early writers describe the arms employed, which 
