THE peccary is the only native American wild hog, although there are now thousands of wild pigs in the forests, the descendants of the common or domestic hogs which have strayed away from the settlers, and whose descendants are now as much wild boars as any to be found in the great German or Polish forests.

The form of the peccary is not unlike that of the domestic hog, though it is short, compact, and very much smaller.

In Texas they go by the name of Mexican hogs, and in the early settlement of the country they frequently proved very troublesome; the settlers, when hunting game in the forest, or looking after their live stock, being often surprised by the attack of half-a-dozen peccaries, who put them up the nearest tree, and often kept them there for hours. As these hogs proved most destructive to the cornfields, a general war was declared against them, and so thoroughly were they hunted, that in the settled portions of the State very few are to be found.

Before speaking of my own interviews with them, I shall quote Mr. W. P. Smith's account of his capture of two peccaries, premising that Mr. Smith was sent out in 1841 by the late Earl of Derby for the purpose of procuring living animals for the Earl's collection at Knowsley.