Emmons County record. [volume] (Williamsport, D.T. [i.e. N.D.]) 1884-current, 1892-10-07
DANGEROUS GAME.
The Vindictive Peccary and Some
/ Of It's Queer Traits.
The Hunters Who Know Anything About
This Strange Animal Select the
Branches Of q Tree as
Point OF Vantage.

II haven't the least idea in the world
hat you ever hunted a peccary, did
iou?" asked a sportsman who affects
knowledge of and delight in large and
'ut-of-the-common kinds Of game, says
he New York Sun. "Of course you
lever did, and unless you have q Cart
Dad of nerve and ammunition enough
20 stock garrison I wouldn't advise
you to. The peccary, as you doubtless
know, is a little animal somewhat on
the wild hog order, and he roams pref
Ity much where he pleases in southern
Texas and abutting regions. There was
a time when 1t was thought that moth
ing would kill q peccary but arrows in
oculated with the deadly poison of the
bloated rattlesnake of the Staked
Plains, which the Apache Indians have
a cheerful way of distilling and apply
ing, but chat was before the days of
Winchester rifles. A bullet from q
Winchester is just searching enough to
find peccary's vitals, but the range
doesn't want to be too long.
"When a man goes out hunting pee
carries he doesn't trip lightly through
the forest, steal upon his unsuspecting
game and bring it down with his trusty
rifle. Not when he hunts peccaries, he
doesn't. If he did, nineteen seconds after
he fred his first shot he would be ap-
portioned out among the drove in two
ounce lots, buttons, boots and baggage
counted in. The daring peccary hunter
shins up a tall tree near where the
cheerful creatures will more than likely
come to feed. The peccary has one
great virtue. He can't climb tree.
Perched safely on limb the bold hunts
man waits for the coming Of the pecca-
ries, and when the drove comes trotting
and grunting along beneath him he
sends a bullet through a peccary's
heart. The wounded peccary lies down
at once. He knows just what's the
matter. He turns his glittering bead of
an eye up toward the hunter and dies
without uttering sound,
zone peccary killed out of a drove,
the hunter must either have ammuni-
ton enough to kill all the rest or pro-
visions enough to last him year, for
the survivors at once take positions
around and about the tree and sit there
on their launches waiting for the hunt
er to come down. If hate, in the fullest
sense of the word, can be expressed by
looks, then the peccary can look and act
it toward any living thing that has
done it or its companion an injury. The
peccaries were the original knights of
labor for their motto has been from the
beginning: AN injury to one is the con-
cern Of ALL They never let up when
fhnyy to,,f O,1t 70 ;,,s,
The hunter may shoot ono after
another of the waiting and watching
drove, and each one, as it receives it's
death wound. lies down without mur-
lnur and dies, never removing it's glar-
ing eyes from its slayer as long as life
lasts. The living peccaries pay no at
tention to the dead or dying, but sit
there on their launches, hoping for re-
yenge until the last one dies. AS drove
of peccaries will in ten seconds tear a
grizzly bear into such minute fragments
that you can scarcely find piece of
bone two inches long after the cerc-
mony is over, you can imagine what
show a hunter would have in meeting
hostile group of them. But tunmolested
drove of peccaries is as harmless as a
drove of sheep, except toward bears or
mountain lions. You may pass
within ten feet Of drove of
these vindictive little animals, and
they will not notice you with
any hostile intent unless you are fool
ish enough to commit some overt act.
Then your friends will wonder all their
lives whatever could have become Of
u0 FThn
draws the line at bears and mountain
lions If you are looking for either Of
the latter and find peccaries, change
your base. You will find neither griz-
ely, silver tip, brown or black bears,
nor mountain lions within miles of any
range where peccaries are feeding.
When it comes to being the king of
American beasts the psccary holds the
scepter.
''The peccary-I mean the white
tipped peccary, the only one that trav-
els in droves, the other one, the COL
Jared peccary, being shy and harmless
and going only in pairs-is odd in every
way. Physically, as well as morally,
he seems to be an abnormal sort of
creature. He has the general appear
ance and habit of the hog, but the hoofs
and three stomachs of the COW. On his
back he has a gland which secretes a
musk, and three minutes after peccary
is killed its flesh will be entirely i'm
with the secretion. Just
what this composite construction Of the
peccary is fora reminiscence of the
hog, the COW and the muskrat-no one
seems to have discovered as yet. But
one thing is certain, the peccary is
Tough and absolutely without fear.s
Time by the Stars.