The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1889-05-22
THE PECCARY.
A FIERCE LITTLE ANIMAL ABSO-
LUTELY WITHOUT FEAR.
The Biggest Grizzlies and Other Wild
Animals Give Him a Wide Berth
An Instance of Their
Eindictive Fury.

weighs 200 pounds. But let either grizzly
or silver-tip, staggering along in often
sive self-consciousness of his superiority
come in sight Of one of these little chaps
nosing around after his dinner among tho
fallen mast. Instantly the swaggcr is
gone. The bear suddenly acts as if he
wishes he wasn't so big. He tries to
draw himself into as contracted a space
as possible, and puts all the speed he can
into his enormous legs as he turns his tail
upon the grunting peccary and seeks q
new domain to do his staggering in.
Gas a rule the pcccary isn't looking fol-
q fight. He doesn't prey on other
animals, and dozen men may ride past
feeding drove of them without their
paying any attention unless some one of
the party is so unwise as to fire shot
into the drove. If one peccary is hurt the
whole drove, and there may be hun
dred or more in it, instantly abandons all
, other business as one peccary, and never
does another thing until the injury done
to one of its number is avenged, if
vengeance is possible. A man who has
thus brought down upon himself the
enmity of drove of peccaries needs be
we'll mounted if he would escape their
fury. They will follow him at an amazing
pace for miles, and will not relinquish so
long as there is any hope of overtaking
the object of their pursuit. If he is over
taken and surrounded, it will not be the
Of 70, fho fn
strew the plain with infnitesimal frag-
ments of himself and his horse. If a man
on foot should be foolhardy enough to
fire into drove of peccaries, and one of
them should give the peculiar snort that
calls for vengeance, it is hardly necessary
to say that the smoke of his gun would
have scarcely cleared away before he
would be separated into bits so small that
one big enough to make the proverbial
grease spot could not possibly be found.
Experienced plainsmen know this pecu-
iarity of the peccary, and never give the
animal reason for even the slightest sus-
picion that they would disturb its serenity.
Like the mountain lion, the grizzly, and
the silver-tip, the wise Western hunter
or ranchman has instant business else
where when he comes upon peccaries.
Many mysterious disappearances of tender
foot hunters and tourists in Southern
California, New Mexico and Southern
Texas can be explained in no more
plausible way than by the assumption that
they had tried their guns on peccaries.
But while the peccary is not, as rule,
aggressive or inclined to fight either
dumb brute or man, it invariably makes
an exception to the rule in all cases where
the mountain lion or bear family is con-
cerned. Peccaries and lions or peccaries
and bears can't live in the same woods,
and it is always the peccaries that remain.
If bear sees drove of peccaries before
any of them see him he may be able to
sneake away and make his escape; but if
he is discovered by the peccaries there is
just as sure to be one bear less in a very
short time, no matter whether he is
grizzly, silver-tip, cinnamon, brown, or
black, as it is sure that the sun will set
tonight. The peccaries surround him
in a second almost, and, although he may
rip and pound the life out of half dozen
of the implacable little beasts before it is
accomplished, it is onlya question OF
very short time when he is torn his entire
length by the sharp, curved tusks of the
wild hogs, and he falls among the at
tacking horde, disemboweled and with
his flesh hanging in ragged strips from
hip to nozzle. Once down the hated
bear is instantly torn limb from limb.
His flesh is chopped into fragments and
quickly devoured. Every bone is
crunched and ground so fine that piece
two inches long would be large one to
find after drove of peccaries have dealt
with bears carcass, to such destructive
length do they invariably carry their
hatred of the bruin family. I was once
witness to an attack on an immense
California brown bear by drove of per-
haps fifty peccaries, and that convinced
me of the futility of any attempt of a
bear to escape from these unrelcnting
little fcnds when they once set out to do
him up.
''It was one early fall day near the
northern boundary line of Lower Cali
fornia. was taking stroll about in
the chapperal with no particular purpose
in view, when I heard peculiar snort in
hollow that sank rather abruptly off to
my right. 1 made my way to the edge of
the depression, which was but two or
three yards away, and parting the bushes
looked down. The hollow was in large
opening in an amphitheatre of timber.
Within three rods of me, and putting
forth every nerve and muscle, the biggest
brown bear ever saw was tearing up the
gradual slope toward tree that stood
near the top of the declivity, the nearest
and most accessible tree to him. Behind
him, and not two jumps away, was a
plunging mass Of little dumpy animals,
seeming to be all fore shoulder, head and
snout. 1 had never seen peccary, but l
didn't need to be told that these animals
tearing along in the wake of the bear
were representatives of that vindictivc
and unforgiving race. Their bristles
stood erect, and they were so many living
pictures of unrcstrained fury. had been
made familiar with the bitter fcud that
existed between the peccary family and
the bruin family, and as soon as I saw
this race between the bear and the wild
pigs, I felt that he had no more chance
of getting up the trunk Of that tree than
he had of taking wing and soaring out of
the hollow.
II hated bears myself, but I couldn't