Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter by James Inglis
page 91 of 347 (26%)
page 91 of 347 (26%)
![]() | ![]() |
|
Their dispositions are very different, the grey being fiercer and more
pugnacious. He is a vicious and implacable foe when roused, and always shews better fight than the black variety. The great difference, however, is in the shape of the skull; that of the black fellow being high over the frontal bone, and not very long in proportion to height, while the skull of the grey boar is never very high, but is long, and receding in proportion to height. The black boar grows to an enormous size, and the grey ones are, generally speaking, smaller made animals than the black. The young of the two also differ in at least one important particular; those of the grey pig are always born striped, but the young of the black variety are born of that colour, and are not striped but a uniform black colour throughout. The two kinds of pig sometimes interbreed, but crosses are not common; and, from the colour, size, shape of the head, and general behaviour, one can easily tell at a glance what kind of pig gets up before his spear, whether it is the heavy, sluggish black boar, or the veritable fiery, vicious, fighting grey tusker. Many stories are told of their enormous size, and a 'forty-inch tusker' is the established standard for a Goliath among boars. The best fighting boars, however, range from twenty-eight to thirty-two inches in height, and I make bold to say that very few of the Present generation of sportsmen have ever seen a veritable wild boar over thirty-eight inches high. G.S., who has had perhaps as much jungle experience as any man of his age in India, a careful observer, and a finished sportsman, tells me that the biggest _boar_ he ever saw was only thirty-eight inches high; while the biggest _pig_ he ever killed was a barren |
|