not to run but to trust to their truculence and their mass-action for
safety. They inflict a fearful bite and frequently kill dogs. They
often charge the hunters and I have heard of men being badly wounded
by them, while almost every man who hunts them often is occasionally
forced to scramble up a tree to avoid a charge. But I have never heard
of a man being killed by them. They sometimes surround the tree in
which the man has taken refuge and keep him up it. Cherrie, on one
occasion in Costa Rica, was thus kept up a tree for several hours by a
great herd of three or four hundred of these peccaries; and this
although he killed several of them. Ordinarily, however, after making
their charge they do not turn, but pass on out of sight. Their great
foe is the jaguar, but unless he exercises much caution they will turn
the tables on him. Cherrie, also in Costa Rica, came on the body of a
jaguar which had evidently been killed by a herd of peccaries some
twenty-four hours previously. The ground was trampled up by their
hoofs, and the carcass was rent and slit into pieces.

Benedetto, as soon as we discovered the tracks, slipped off his horse,
changed his leggings for sandals, threw his rifle over his arm, and
took the trail of the herd, followed by the only dog which would
accompany him. The peccaries had gone into a broad belt of forest,
with a marsh on the farther side. At first Antonio led the colonel and
me, all of us on horseback, at a canter round this belt to the marsh
side, thinking the peccaries had gone almost through it. But we could
hear nothing. The dog only occasionally barked, and then not loudly.
Finally we heard a shot. Benedetto had found the herd, which showed no
fear of him; he had backed out and fired a signal shot. We all three
went into the forest on foot toward where the shot had been fired. It
was dense jungle and stiflingly hot. We could not see clearly for more
than a few feet, or move easily without free use of the machetes. Soon