I have known many instances when, on hearing a jolly row in the covert, I have crawled in on my hands and knees, and found a boar being bayed by my spaniels—­in fact, I have killed more pigs in this way than in any other.  The danger is that you may have your dogs killed by the boar; this has happened to me on one or two occasions, more especially with young dogs.

I had once a cunning old spaniel dog (poor ‘Dick,’ well known to most sportsmen out here), who has frequently come out of the wood with his mouth full of pig’s hair, he evidently having torn the hair off the animal while laying in his lair. (Dick was never hurt by a pig.) I have often surrounded, with my brother sportsmen and myself, large bushes in which the piggies were securely hidden, driven them out, and shot them as one would do hares or rabbits.

I have heard a good deal of the danger of pig shooting, on account of the savage propensities of the animal; but I have found that, with very rare exceptions, the Anatolian wild boar always runs.  It is true that they (she or he, the females are the most savage) have a nasty knack of giving a sort of jerk with their heads, when fighting or even passing an enemy, and that jerk means to a man the ripping up of his leg from his heel to his thigh, to a dog the tearing open of his entrails.

On one occasion I was out cock shooting, when some shepherds’ dogs in a valley adjoining that in which I was walking started a large wild boar, a beast they call a ‘solitaire,’ from the fact that he is always seen after a certain time of life alone.  The animal made for a ridge dividing the valleys; on getting there he passed along the sky-line, about eighty yards from where I was.  I changed my cartridges and fired a ball at the pig, who rushed away, apparently unshot; on going to the spot, however, where he had passed when I fired, I found some drops of blood.  This blood I traced for about half a mile, till I came to a large clump of bushes into which my spaniels dashed, evidently close to their game.  I heard a tremendous row in the bushes, had hardly time to prepare when the great beast with his eyes all bloodshot and foaming at the mouth rushed straight at me.  I was on a narrow path, from which there was no escape, as the boar was tearing up it, followed by the dogs.  I fired a ball straight in his face, at the distance of about two yards, in spite of which he rushed straight on, knocked me clean over, and while passing me made the usual dangerously effective jerk I have alluded to above, by which he cut my boot from the ankle to the thigh, drew a little blood just above and inside of the knee; after which the boar rushed headlong for about thirty yards and dropped dead.  I found that my bullet had smashed through his forehead straight between the eyes and gone into his brain.

He was an enormous brute, weighing when cleaned twenty-one stone; carrying the finest tusks I have seen anywhere as belonging to a wild boar.  I only had one man with me; we were what may be called eight miles from anywhere.  Still I was determined not to leave my prize; so I sent my man for a country waggon, and sitting down on my now harmless beast, smoked cigarettes and waited quietly till the vehicle came.