Quitting the true pigs, we come now to perhaps the very strangest and most singular of all the great tribe of swine. This is the Babirusa, that curious and grotesque creature found in the island of Celebes, in the Malay Archipelago. The name Babirusa signifies "pig-deer." It is of course a misnomer, and the animal has no kinship whatever with the cervine race. The babirusa is a wild swine, having a dark slate-grey skin, very sparsely covered with hair along the ridge of the spine. This skin is very extraordinarily wrinkled. The ears are much smaller than is the case with other members of the swine group, while the tail is short, straight, and lacks any semblance of tuft. The females have small tusks. In the boars the tusks are most singularly and abnormally developed. From the upper jaw, instead of curving from the side of the lips, the tusks grow from the centre of the muzzle, penetrate right through the skin, and curve backwards often till they touch the forehead. The lower tusks have also a strong curve, but are not so long as those of the upper jaw. Although thus superabundantly provided with tushes, the babirusa is, as regards the rest of its teeth, less well off, having only thirty-four, as against the forty-four of the European wild boar. In their habits these singular pigs much resemble other wild swine, going in herds and frequenting forest, jungle, and the banks of rivers. They are excellent swimmers. The young are, unlike other wild swine in the infant state, unstriped. These animals are often found domesticated about the dwellings of native chiefs in Celebes. The weight of a good male is as much as 128 lbs.; height at shoulder, 27½ inches. The longest tusk recorded measures 17 inches over the curve. These animals are driven into nets and speared by the natives of Celebes, and afford excellent sport, the boars especially charging viciously at their assailants.
The Wart-hogs.
If the babirusa of the Malay Archipelago is a sufficiently bizarre-looking creature, the wart-hog of Africa yields to none of the wild pigs in sheer, downright hideousness of aspect. The Wart-hog of South Africa, the Vlakte-vark (Pig of the Plains) of the Boers, has long been familiar to hunters and naturalists. Standing some 30 inches in height, this wild swine is distinguished by the disproportionate size of the head, extreme length, breadth, and flatness of the front of the face and muzzle, smallish ears, huge tusks, and the strange wart-like protuberances from which it takes its name. Three of these wen-like growths are found on each side of the face. The tusks of the upper jaw, unlike the teeth of the true pigs, are much larger than those protruding from the lower jaw. The lower tusks seldom exceed 6 inches in length; those of the upper jaw occasionally reach as much as 20 inches over the curve. A pair from North-east Africa (Annesley Bay, on the Abyssinian littoral) measure respectively 27 and 26 inches—truly gigantic trophies. The skin of this wild hog is nearly naked, except upon the neck and back, where a long, coarse main of dark bristly hair is to be observed. Wart-hogs, as their Dutch name implies, in the days when game was plentiful, were often found in open country, on the broad grass-plains and karroos. At the present day they are less often seen in the open. They run in small family parties, usually two or three sows and their litters. The old boars, throughout a great part of the year, prefer a more solitary existence. These animals, when pursued, usually betake themselves to an open earth, not of their own making, and, slewing round sharply just as they enter, make their way in hind end first. They afford no great sport to the hunter, and are usually secured with a rifle-bullet. The flesh is fairly good eating, especially that of a young and tender specimen. Speaking generally, wart-hogs are nothing like such fierce and determined opponents as the wild boars of Europe and India, or even the bush-pig. They will, however, charge occasionally, and have been known to attack and rip up a horse. A northern species—Ælian's Wart-hog—is found in Abyssinia, Somaliland, and other parts of East Africa, where—especially in Abyssinia—it roams the mountains and their vicinity, occasionally to a height of 9,000 or 10,000 feet. There is little difference between this and the southern form. Wart-hogs produce usually three or four young, and the sow makes her litter in a disused burrow. Unlike those of the majority of wild swine, the young of the wart-hog are uniformly coloured, having no white stripes or spots.
Photo by W. P. Dando] [Regent's Park.
COLLARED PECCARY.
Peccaries are the New World representatives of the Swine, and are characterised by a large gland on the back.
The Peccaries.
Peculiar to the American Continent, the Peccaries differ considerably from the wild swine of the Old World. They are of small size; the dentition is not the same, the stomach is more complicated in structure, and the hind feet have three instead of four toes. In general appearance peccaries are not unlike small dark-coloured pig, well covered with bristles, and having, as well as a prominent mane, a deep fringe of hair beneath the throat. They are essentially forest-loving animals, roaming over large tracts of country and making considerable migrations in search of food. Two species have been distinctly identified by naturalists—the Collared Peccary, and the White-lipped Peccary. Of these, the former species is found from Texas, in North America, as far south as the Rio Negro, in Patagonia. The habitat of the white-lipped peccary is more circumscribed, and the animal is seldom found except in that part of South and Central America lying between British Honduras and Paraguay. No members of the Pig Family are fiercer or more tenacious of their sanctuaries than the white-lipped peccary, which roams the dense forests of Brazil and Paraguay in large herds. A human being, attacked and surrounded by a herd of these savage little creatures, would indeed stand but a poor chance of his life, and many a hunter and traveller has been compelled to seek refuge in a tree and sustain some hours of siege. Of the two species, the white-lipped peccary is somewhat the larger, standing from 15 to 17½ inches in height. The collared peccary averages from 13½ to 15½ inches. The flesh of these wild swine is not in much repute, and unless the back-gland is at once cut out a freshly killed specimen will become quickly spoiled as a human food-supply. Young peccaries appear to be easily tamed, fierce as is their nature in the wild state. In contrast with the abundant litters of other pigs, wild and domesticated, only one offspring is ordinarily produced at birth. In fighting, the peccary does not rip like the wild boar, but inflicts savage and severe bites.
"Untrained dogs," says President Roosevelt, "even those of a large size, will speedily be killed by a single peccary, and if they venture to attack a herd will be literally torn into shreds. A big trained dog, however, can, single-handed, kill a peccary, and I have known the feat performed several times."