In the woods of South America there are abundance of wild swine, possessing all the ferocity of the boar. The following fearful scene occurred in Columbia. A party of six hunters had gone out on a sporting expedition. They fell in with a herd of swine, upon which four of them, less experienced than the others, immediately fired, and the swine advanced fiercely to attack them. The four young men, intimidated, took to flight without warning their companions, or considering the danger to which they were exposed. They climbed up into some trees, but the other two were quickly surrounded by the swine. They made a long and desperate defence with their lances, but were at length dragged down. One of them was torn to pieces, and the other dreadfully lacerated, and left for dead by the swine, who now watched the four fugitives in the trees until sunset. Then, probably yielding to the calls of nature, they retired. The surviving hunters then came down and assisted their wounded companion into the canoe, and carried off the remains of the unfortunate man who had fallen in this horrible encounter. (Cochrane's Columbia, vol. i.)
We have entered thus much at length into the history of the wild boar, because no one can for a moment doubt that it is the parent stock from which the domesticated breeds of swine originally sprung; the well-known fact that all kinds breed with the boar, is in itself a sufficient testimony; but to this we can add that the period of gestation is the same in the wild and tame sow; the anatomical structure is identical; the general form bears the same characters; and the habits, so far as they are not altered by domestication, remain the same.
Where individuals of the pure, wild race, have been caught young and subjected to the same treatment as a domestic pig, their fierceness has disappeared, they have become more social and less noctural in their habits, lost their activity, and lived more to eat. In the course of one or two generations even the form undergoes certain modifications; the body becomes larger and heavier; the legs shorter and less adapted for exercise; the formidable tusks of the boar, being no longer needed as weapons of defence, disappear; the shape of the head and neck alters; and in character as well as in form, the animal adapts itself to its position. Nor does it appear that a return to their native wilds restores to them their original appearance; for, in whatever country pigs have escaped from the control of man, and bred in the woods and wildernesses, there does not appear to be a single instance recorded by any naturalist in which they have resumed the habits and form of the wild boar. They become fierce, wild, gaunt, and grisly, and live upon roots and fruits; but they are still merely degenerated swine, and they still associate together in herds, nor "walk the glade in savage solitary grandeur" like their grim ancestors.
