The peccary, as already stated, is gregarious. They wander in droves of twenty, or sometimes more. This, however, is only in the winter. In the season of love, and during the period of gestation, they are met with only in pairs—a male and female. They are very true to each other, and keep close together.
The female produces two young at a litter. These are of a reddish-brown colour, and at first not larger than young puppies; but they are soon able to follow the mother through the woods; and then the “family party” usually consists of four.
Later in the season, several of these families unite, and remain together, partly perhaps from having met by accident, and partly for mutual protection; for whenever one of their number is attacked, all the drove takes part against the assailant, whether he be hunter, cougar, or lynx. As they use both their teeth, tusks, and sharp fore-hoofs with rapidity and effect, they become a formidable and dangerous enemy.
The cougar is often killed and torn to pieces by a drove of peccaries, that he has been imprudent enough to attack. Indeed, this fierce creature will not often meddle with the peccaries when he sees them in large numbers. He attacks only single ones; but their “grunting,” which can be heard to the distance of nearly a mile, summons the rest, and he is surrounded before he is aware of it, and seized by as many as can get around him.
The Texan hunter, if afoot, will not dare to disturb a drove of peccaries. Even when mounted, unless the woods be open, he will pass them by without rousing their resentment. But, for all this, the animal is hunted by the settlers, and hundreds are killed annually. Their ravages committed upon the corn-fields make them many enemies, who go after them with a desire for wholesale slaughter.
Hounds are employed to track the peccary and bring it to bay, when the hunters ride up and finish the chase by their unerring rifles.
A flock of peccaries, when pursued, will sometimes take shelter in a cave or cleft of the rocks, one of their number standing ready at the mouth. When this one is shot by the hunter, another will immediately rush out and take its place. This too being destroyed, will be replaced by a third, and so on until the whole drove has fallen.
Should the hounds attack the peccary while by themselves, and without the aid and encouragement of the hunter, they are sure to be “routed,” and some of their number destroyed. Indeed, this little creature, of not more than two feet in length, is a match for the stoutest bull-dog! I have myself seen a peccary (a caged one, too)—that had killed no less than six dogs of bull and mastiff breed—all of them considered fighting dogs of first-rate reputation.
The Kentuckian had a peccary adventure which had occurred to him while on an excursion to the new settlements of Texas. “It was my first introduction to these animals,” began he, “and I am not likely soon to forget it. It gave me, among the frontier settlers of Texas, the reputation of a ‘mighty hunter,’ though how far I deserved that name you may judge for yourselves.
“I was for some weeks the guest of a farmer or ‘planter,’ who lived upon the Trinity Bottom. We had been out in the ‘timber’ several times, and had filled both bear, deer, and turkeys, but had not yet had the luck to fall in with the peccary, although we never went abroad without seeing their tracks, or some other indications of what my friend termed ‘peccary sign.’ The truth is, that these animals possess the sense of smell in the keenest degree; and they are usually hidden long before the hunter can see them or come near them. As we had gone without dogs, of course we were not likely to discover which of the nine hundred and ninety-nine hollow logs passed in a day, was the precise one in which the peccaries had taken shelter.