+---------------+--------+---------------------+-------------------+ | Authority | Height |Length, head and body| Remarks | +---------------+--------+---------------------+-------------------+ |British Museum.|36½ ins.| 75 ins. |{ A skeleton, tail | | | | |{ with some vertebræ| | | | |{ wanting | +---------------+--------+---------------------+-------------------+
It is a maxim in India that the only sportsmanlike way of killing boar is with horse and spear, and therefore as these volumes treat principally of those beasts which fall or should fall to the rifle, this pluckiest of all beasts must be dismissed with a very brief notice.
Occasionally there may be some justification for shooting boar, but as they travel great distances, none ought to be shot within forty miles of rideable ground.
Several cases are on record in which an old boar has beaten off a tiger, and some in which the latter has been killed by a boar. The boar’s extraordinary activity and sharp tusks make him no mean adversary, and his short neck makes it difficult for a tiger to seize it and give it that fatal wrench with which he likes to polish off his victims.
_Native names: ‘Sano-banel,’ Nepal; ‘Chota soor,’ Hindi_
This tiny little wild pig is found in the Sál forests of Nepal and Sikkim. It has the reputation of going in herds like the peccary and attacking intruders in the same fearless way. In shape it only differs from the common wild pig in that its snout is comparatively shorter, and the eye consequently set midway between snout and ear. Its tail, too, is short and is hidden among the bristles on the rump. It has long bristles all over its back and sides, but no well-defined mane like an ordinary boar, whilst its ears are quite hairless and the under parts of the body and limbs almost so. Some stuffed specimens in the British Museum of apparently half-grown beasts are deep chestnut, a full-grown one being nearly black.
+--------------+-------------+------------+------------+------------+ | Authority |Length, head | Height | Weight | Remarks | | | and body | | | | +--------------+-------------+------------+------------+------------+ |Sterndale |18 to 20 ins.|8 to 10 ins.|7 to 10 lbs.| | | | | | | | | | | | |{ A stuffed | |British Museum| 28 ins. | 11½ ins. | .. |{ specimen | | | | | |{ tusks 1 in.| +--------------+-------------+------------+------------+------------+