in a pannage close to that of the
"painted pig," show us the form and ugliness, of the bush pig and flat
pig (_Choiropotamus Africanus_) of that southern land, with their long
heads, long legs, upturned tails, and horrid tusks. They have a strange
habit of kneeling on their fore-legs. In South Africa they abound; and
the natives--our excellent friend, the Rev. Henry Methuen, tells
us--often bring their jaws for barter. They are of a dingy, dirty gray;
the boar is two feet and a half high, and his tusks sometimes measure
"eleven inches and a half each from the jawbone," are five inches and a
half in circumference at the base, and are thirteen inches apart at
their extremities.

No animal is more formidably armed; and his rapidity and lightness of
movement make him a very marked object to the African Nimrod, who, midst
"clumps of bush"--be they Proteacae, heaths, or Diosmeae--not unfrequently
comes on a herd of wild pigs "headed by a noble boar," with tail erect.
We could enter largely on the history of this active species, and quote
many a stirring anecdote of travellers' rencontres with this fearless
animal. The lion skulks away from him, but the rhinoceros--at least one
species--the buffalo, with his formidable front of horn and bone, and
the bush pig, with his dreaded tusks, show but little fear; and it is
well for the huntsman that he has a sure eye, a steady hand, and a
double-barrelled gun, and not a few Caffir followers to help him, should
his eye be dim, his hand waver, or his gun "flash in the pan." Dogs
avail but little; a deadly gash lays open their ribs, and a side-thrust
of a wild boar will cut into the most muscular leg, and for ever destroy
its tendons. We have done with pigs, and would only recommend a visit--a
frequent visit--to that paradise of animals, the Zoological Gardens,
where, a fortnight ago, we saw wild boars from Hesse Darmstadt; wild
boars from Egypt; bush pigs from Africa; peccaries from South America;
and two painted pigs from West Africa; all "_de grege porci_," and in
excellent health: to say nothing of two hippopotamuses; four "seraphic"
giraffes; antelopes (we did not number them); brush turkeys from
Australia; an apteryx from New Zealand; the curious white sheathbills
from the South Seas; the refulgent metallic green and purple-tinted
monaul, or Impeyan pheasant, strutting with outspread, light-coloured
tail, just as he courts his plain hen-mate on the Indian mountains; a
family of th