THe Latines call him Aper,* 1.1 &c. the Greeks Kapros, &c. They are for the most part black, or blackish. Some brasse-coloured saith Pliny. Pausanias writes, that he hath seen white ones; their eyes fierce, and staring. The tuskes great, turning up, sharp, and white. And, which is strange, while the beast lives, they have the keen force of iron, but pluck them out of him dead, they are thought to loose their keennesse. Some tuskes are said to be so long, that they turne back into a ring.* 1.2 In India some have double bending tusks, a cubite long. Gyllius relates, that,* 1.3 when he is mastered by the dogs, and spearmen, and falls, his tusks through his in∣flaming breath burnt as fire; and if any pluck a bristle out of his neck, and hold it to his tusk, while hee breaths, it shall shrivell up, and scorch; and if he touch but a dog with his tusk in hunting, it shall set a marke on him, as if he were branded. His mouth is like a shield, wherewith he withstands spear, and sword. He hath no gall. His blood hath no strings in it.
Pliny saith there are none in Creet.* 1.4 Some say, but mistake, that there are none in Africa, nor in India.* 1.5 But they are by herds in Islands in the Nile in Egypt. Some say they are mute in Macedon. The Spaniards in West-Indies have found some lesse then ours, with short tayls, that they thought they had been cut off; not footed as ours, not cleft behind, but whole∣hoofd;* 1.6 the flesh much more savoury and wholesome then ours. Neare the Sea-shore there grow many palms, and marishy reeds, where many of them wander. Lycotus, in Calphurnius his husbandry, saith that among the Roman shews he saw snow-white hairs, and horned wild Boars. These wild feed as the tame swine on acorns, apples, barly, herbs, roots, and the rest. With their snouts they root also worms up.* 1.7 They long excessively after dry-figs. But they are of a more cleanly nature then the tame. They are found sometimes among ferne leaves, which themselves have gathered toge∣ther, and spread to ly on. They avoid a kind of sharp-eared corn, that the Germans use to feed on.* 1.8 When they would engender, their neck bristles start up, and stand as the crest of an helmet; they fome at mouth, gnash with their tusks, and their breath is extreme hot: After, they abate of their fury; being rejected they force,* 1.9 or wound the female. They couple in the beginning of winter; bring forth at spring, seeking lonely, craggy, narrow, dark∣some places to litter in. They keepe company thirty dayes. The wild swine carry their pigs as long as the tame, and litter as many. They pig once a year; The Boar is a year old ere he genders. They grunt, and snuft as tame; but the Sow more, the Boar is seldome heard. They haunt out-places, and those deep and steep. They are quicker of hearing then man is; they herd together, but commonly with their own brood. Their tears are sweet; they foame when chafed with hunting, and it is cleaving.* 1.10 Their urine is so troublesome to them, that unlesse they can water, they cannot fly, but are taken, as if they were tied; some say it burnes them. They are hardly ever tamed, and you must begin from the first, while they are pigs. Hemlock, and the root of Syanchus kills them. If they chance they eat hemlock, they strait shrink up behind, and pine, and hasten to water,* 1.11 and eat crabs. They cure their diseases with Ivy: they grow till they be four year old; they are taken with, and by musick. In a Borrough in Tusculum they came toge∣ther to their meat at the blowing of a trumpet. They know how to confound the hunters by their footsteps in marishes. The females, though many in a herd, fly with their pigs, if they see a hunter; but if one of their pigs be hunted, they fly not, not though one be alone, but shee will rush on the huntsman, they whet their teeth ere they fight: though they in com∣bate among themselves, yet if they spy Wolves, they combine against the common foe, and hasten to help as soon as they heare the cry. Fulvius Hirpinus was the first of the Gownd∣order that had a parke for wild Boares, and other wild; and not long after L. Lucullus, and Q. Hortensius imitated him.* 1.12 How savoury meat they are is well knowen. Servilius Rullus, father to that Rullus, who in Cicero his Consul∣ship proclaimed the field, or Agrarian law, was the first Roman who set a whole Boar on his table at a feast. Some such were a thousand pound weight, that the Romans had to their suppers; thence called Milliary, from their weight. Consult Apicius about the manner of seasoning them. The flesh is much better then