The wart-hog, or vlack-vark, which is found in Eastern Africa, is certainly the ugliest of all the swine. Its head is enormously large in comparison with its body, the muzzle is very long and broad, under each eye is a great wart-like lump, with two others a little distance below it, and on each side of the mouth two great stout tusks spring upward. Altogether, it would be very hard to imagine a more sullen and ferocious-looking animal.
It is not nearly so savage as the babirusa, however, and if it is attacked it nearly always runs away, and tries to take refuge in some hole in the ground, such as the deserted burrow of an ant-bear. When it takes to ground in this way, it always turns round just before entering, and backs in tail foremost. Sometimes, if two or three men stand just over the burrow and jump heavily up and down in time together, it can be induced to bolt. But it is advisable to do so with a good deal of caution, for the animal has a singular way of turning a kind of back somersault just as it leaves its burrow, which lands it upon the top, just where the hunters would most likely be standing. And if they are not very careful one of them at least is almost sure to receive a slashing cut from the terrible tusks, which will certainly cause a severe wound, and may even render him a cripple for life.
When it is running away from a pursuer, and wishes to see whether it is gaining upon him, the wart-hog presents a most ridiculous appearance, for its neck is so short that it cannot turn its head round to look behind it. So it lifts its snout straight up into the air instead and looks over its shoulders. Besides this, it always carries its tail perfectly stiff and upright.
Peccaries
In South America, and in Mexico and western Texas, the wild swine are represented by the peccaries, of which there are two different kinds, the collared peccary and the less common white-lipped peccary. They are not very large animals, being only about three feet in length, and weighing not more than fifty or sixty pounds; but they are nevertheless very dangerous creatures, for three different reasons.
In the first place, they travel about in packs, sometimes consisting of thirty or forty animals, which all attack a foe together. In the second place, although their tusks are not nearly so long as those of the preceding animals, they are almost as sharp as razors, and can inflict most terrible wounds. Thirdly, the animals know no fear, and will go on savagely attacking any enemy, over and over again, until the last of them is killed. So if a hunter should meet with a herd of peccaries in the forest, even if he be armed with a gun, his only chance of escape is to climb into a tree and to stay there till they go away.
When a herd of peccaries is not very large—consisting, perhaps, of only ten or twelve individuals—they are very fond of taking up their abode in the hollow trunk of some fallen tree. In this case they can be very easily destroyed, for one animal is always placed at the entrance to act as a sentinel; and if a hunter conceals himself in some convenient place close by, takes careful aim, and shoots the watching peccary dead upon the spot, the animal behind him will just push out his carcass and take his place, to be himself shot in like manner. In this way the whole herd may be killed one after another.
Peccaries will eat almost any kind of food, and though they live as a rule in the thickest parts of the forests, they will often wander to long distances in order to feed upon the crops in cultivated ground. There they sometimes do an immense amount of damage, and as they generally come during the night, and leave again before daybreak, it is very difficult to trap or shoot them.