The horse and other live stock . eboar, however, seem desirous of attacking any thing; andonly when roused by aggression, or disturbed in their retreat,do they turn upon their enemies and manifest the mightystrength with which Nature has endowed them. Whenattacked by dogs, the wild boar at first sullenly retreats, turn-ing upon them from time to time and menacing them withhis tusks ; but gradually his anger rises, and at length hestands at bay, fights furiously for his life, and tears and rends his persecu-tors. Hehas evenbeen observ-ed to singleout the mosttormentingof them, andrush savage-ly
The horse and other live stock . eboar, however, seem desirous of attacking any thing; andonly when roused by aggression, or disturbed in their retreat,do they turn upon their enemies and manifest the mightystrength with which Nature has endowed them. Whenattacked by dogs, the wild boar at first sullenly retreats, turn-ing upon them from time to time and menacing them withhis tusks ; but gradually his anger rises, and at length hestands at bay, fights furiously for his life, and tears and rends his persecu-tors. Hehas evenbeen observ-ed to singleout the mosttormentingof them, andrush savage-ly upon this animal has been a favorite sport, in almost all countries inwhich it has been found, from the earliest ages. Wild boars lingered in the forests of England and Scotlandfor several centuries after the Norman conquest, and manytracts of land in those countries derived their name from thiscircumstance ; while instances of valor in their destruction are recorded in the heraldic devices of many of their noble252. THE WILD BOAR AT BAT. HISTORY AND BREEDS. 15 families. The precise period at wliich the animal becameexterminated there cannot be precisely ascertained. Theyhad, however, evidently been long extinct in the time ofCharles I., since he endeavored to re-introduce them, and wasat considerable expense to procure a wild boar and his matefrom Germany. They still exist in Upper Austria, on theSyrian Alps, in many parts of Hungary, and in the forests ofPoland, Spain, Russia, and Sweden ; and the inhabitants ofthose countries hunt them with hounds, or attack them withfire-arms, or with the proper boar-spear. All the varieties of the domestic hog will breed with thewild boar; the period of gestation is the same in the wild andthe tame sow; their anatomical structure is identical; theirgeneral form bears the same characters ; and their habits, sofar as they are not changed by domestication, remain thesame. Where individuals of the pure wild race have beencaught yo
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1860, booksubjectveterin, bookyear1866
