The Sun.
London, England, 1866-04-10 00:00:00

CRICKE TING.

A TERRIBLE BOAR.

The sportsmen of the old forest of La ;Forte, in
France, had an exciting affair the other day with a
magnificent wild boar, five years old, that had made
short work of several dogs who had the effrontery
to cross his path. At the dawn of day, the piqueurs,
under the lead of Claude Bouchan, the oldest and,
at the same time, the most wary and the most
robust in the neighbourhood, began to draw the
woods of La Fontaine ChanEn; the sanglier was
soon found, the dogs uncoupled, and the bristly
brute attacked in his lair. The boar wanted little
rousing ; he charged the dogs with fury, and having
wounded two or three of them went away like a
thunderbolt in the direction of the woods of Saint

Ambreuil, tearing down the small trees and under
wood that stood in his way as if they were reeds, the
hounds made after him, open-mouthed, and the
tramp of the horses echoed like thunder beneath the
old forest trees. The river Grosne, swollen and
rapid, lay across the boar's path, but, nothing
daunted, _ he dashed into the foaming waters and
gained the opposite bank, with the pack close at his
heels ; here he found himself in a network of deep
ditches filled by the overflowing of the river, and
coming suddenly upon a number of fishermen he
turned round and nearly retraced his route. But the
river was becoming more swollen and rapid every
minute, and the instant the boar's pace slackened, he
received the first ball, which penetrated below the
ear and entered his head. It was a sporting doctor
of Chalon who administered this disagreeable pill ; an
unpleasant sample of the medical gentleman's
boluses. The wounded boar now made for the woods,
losing much blood, and the dogs, more excited than
ever, pressed him so hard that he attempted to hide
himself in an almost impenetrable thicket ; but at
this moment the old piqueur lodged two more balls
in the carcase of the boar, who disappeared. The
piqueur called on the dogs, made his way into the
thicket, and, getting sight of the sanglier, gave him
a third ball, which also lodged] in the creature's
skull.
The boar fell, but while Claude Bouchan was
taking aim for a fourth shot, the animal rose to his
feet, charged furiously at the piper, killed the two
best dogs of the pack, threw the old man down,
rather seriously wounded in the legs, and took re-
fuge in a ditch, around which the now terrified
hounds fretted and howled. Hearing the cries of
the wounded piqueur, the shouts of the huntsmen,
and the howling of the dogs, the master of the hunt
rode up to the ditch, dismounted from his horse, and
with his rifled carbine lodged another ball beneath
the animal's eye. The boar charged out of the
ditch at his new enemy, who would have fared
badly had he not had the presence of mind to empty
the second barrel of his piece in the region of the
heart of the creature, who fell dead at his feet.
The hunt lasted from seven o'clock in the morning
till three in the afternoon. When the boar was cut
up he was found to have five balls in his head, and
his carcase weighed more than 650 pound:3. The
victorious party paid somewhat dearly for its con-
quest. The unfortunate piqueur will not be on his
legs again for a month, at the least ; the pack has
lost its two best dogs, valued at 1,500 francs, and
has five others wounded, and, for the present, hors
de combat. It is not child's play this hunting the
sanalier.