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ARIZONA WILD PIGS GALORE The American Peccary Furnishes Good Sport to the Hunter He Runs the Ranges of New Mex ¬ ico Texas anil Central America How good it feels after a week at the desk to don khaki shoulder the old rifle shake off all cares and worries and trudge over mesa and foot ¬ hill where both animal and plant life are alike un ¬ tamed What a blessing to have game to hunt And how little is the blessing appreciated These thoughts and many more surged through the mind of the writer as he traveled swiftly over a moun ¬ tain road early one morning recently on the way to a pig hunt The January air was crisp and ex ¬ hilarating the road smooth the machine running like a clock and everything conducive to high spirits In front the mountains loomed distinctively through the purple morning haze in the rear the sun although not yet risen tinged the crests of the ranges with a golden halo Out of the town n short distance a Mexican wood hauler was just breaking camp by the roadside The coals were still glowing where he had boiled his coffee before harnessing his patient little team of burros Farther on the machine passed two blanketed Indians jog ¬ ging along in a dilapidated buggy drawn by a more dilapidated horse the brave sitting humped up on the seat and his squaw crouching directly behind him in the bed of the rig Rabbits both jack and cottontail hopped across the road from the foothills on the left toward the valley on the right on their way for a morning sin at the creek and a sly feed in some farmers barley field Still farther on a bevy of quail ran swiftly in the same direction directionItefore Itefore wo realized it we passed NineMile Water Hole and entered the pass in the Tucson Mountains A sharp turn to tho north a half mile over the dry bed of the Santa Cruz a short ride through barley fields just turning green and we were on the mesa road leading to our destination Burro Canyon in the Tortillita Mountains MountainsON ON THE WAY TO PECCARY HAUNTS HAUNTSThe The road over which we traveled was crossed by nuemrous sandy washes where the machine cut down and then stopped necessitating a little shoulder work on the part of the hunters until the driver bethought himself of the skid chains when things went along smoother How an eastern hunter would have enjoyed that road through giant cactus and melinite and palo verde parks with rabbits and quail scurrying to cover and occasional long tailed road runners speeding across the way Van der got in some revolver practice but did little more than scare the jackrabbits into rigid immo ¬ bility or into wild cavorting leaps Five miles of this country brought the party into the foothills Here the chollas cactus plants with silvery glis ¬ tening denselyclustered spines formed small dwarf forostlike patches in the more level spots mesquite and palo vcrdc became more frequent and larger in the arroyos and the giant cactus extended out over the foothills foothillsOnce Once during the conversation one of the men noticed a movement behind a cliunn of brush that was so unlike that of rabbits or young cattle or any of the other foothill life that he remarked its occurrence but he had just caught the move ¬ ment out of the tail of his eye nothing more was seen and it was soon forgotten Shortly after ¬ ward the road dropped down into a broad wash and the party realized that the canyon was not far away The wash was like the dry bed of a river with banks five or six feet high Here and there were large greentrunked palo verde trees growing in the moist soil of the wash whose banks were lined with a dense patchy growth of cats claw mesquite and prickly pear Suddenly at a distance of fifteen or twenty rods ahead a grayishblack object crossed the wash at a lumbering gallop fol ¬ lowed by another and still another Commotion reigned in the car Wade who was Bitting with Itob in the front seat was steadying a large can ¬ teen of water between his feet and now his feet were entangled in the carrying strap delaying both men in their endeavors to get out rander dressed in a long overcoat was riding with his feet under ¬ neath a goodsized box of grub while the writer likewise appareled was held down by a suitcase containing a field camera and some canned goods In the general scramble Wade readied terra firma first and got one shot as the last pig number seven crossed the wash and disappeared with the rest of the herd in the brush The machine was now abandoned and the hunt began but the herd had disappeared as completely as if the earth had swallowed it up The tracks could be followed for a short distance but they finally became indis ¬ tinguishable in a maze of burro and cattle tracks So the party returned to the machine to recover breath eat lunch and make plans for the remainder of the day dayPIGS PIGS PLENTIFUL BUT ALL SURVIVE SURVIVEAfter After lunch which by the way was rather ab ¬ breviated Vauder and Wade took the east side of the wash and proceeded away from the mountains in the direction from which we had approached for AVO believed that the movement seen in the bushes before the wasli was reached on the way out had been made by pigs that belonged to the same herd Hob and the writer took the west side of the wash with the hone of starting the vanished herd In attempting to follow the tracks the latter became separated after circling toward the mountains and the writer decided that Rob and probably the other men also were by this time tramping up the can ¬ yon therefore he hurried along about fifty feet above the canyon bed on its sloping wall A herd of wild burros that had been watching his move ¬ ments from a distance and listening intently yith long ears erect scampered precipitately down into the wash followed by an avalanche of rock and gravel None of the party was in sight and he thought that the chances of getting a shot at a pig were slim for the others would alarm any game that happened to be ahead Suddenly a shot rang out a half mile ahead apparently just around a curve in the canyon This confirmed the writers fears However lie determined to keep a sharp lookout and accordingly mounted a high rock near by Shortly after the third shot broke the quiet an object with that telltale lumbering gallop dime into sight far in the distance backed into a clump of bushes and turned its head in the direc ¬ tion of the alarming sound exactly like a barnyard hog Adjusting the sights carefully the writer let go at the tusker AVith the report of the rifle that pig bounded forward and galloped wildly out of night Although there were small hopes of seeing the brute again a fresh cartridge was pumped into the chamber ready for a second shot if he should enter an open snaee between the clumps of cats claw After n few seconds the pig reappeared as suddenly as he hud disappeared this time about two hundred yards distant Just on the bank of a nsirrow wash he paused and the writer blazed away agnin for a spot just back of the pigs head The instant the rifle cracked the pig lunged forward into an impenetrable thicket of thorn bush contain ¬ ing heaps of driftwood carried down by freshets and much to the disappointment of the hunter failed to emerge One of the most disturbing things that can happen is to have reason to think that an animal has been wounded and left but although an hour was spent in search the boar was not to be located locatedBETTER BETTER LUCK FOR THE HUNTERS HUNTERSIn In the meantime excited shouts farther up the canyon told of bagged game Some one shouted Two pigs a young sow and a yearling boar Who got them Wade Might have known was the comment The greenest hunter always has the luck But the comments were in fun A part of the hunters task remained however that was anything but fun for two of the party es ¬ pecially The game must be dressed and carried into camp Now the American wild pig is really a peccary and you realize the difference at once when you begin dressing operations As one of the party icinnrked a peccary seems to be second cousin to 11 Kkunk until the nccnt bag is removed This interesting piece of anatomy is located on the buck about a fourth of the distance from ramp to head It is about three or four inches long oval in outline and has an aperture near the center in the end of u small wartlike elevation The biig is removed easily by cutting the hide around it and until this is done the strain on the olefactory nerves of the operator is certainly anything but mild While the writer attended to the yearling Wucle attacked the young pig Much to the amuse ¬ ment of the party he had quietly plugged his nos ¬ trils with some cotton and protected in this way he proceeded to remove scent bag and entrails Thus lightened the game was hung on a palo vcrde polo and carried slowly into camp by two of the nifn while tin others hurried on ahead in order ti have coffee ready And maybe that coffee didnt ttntt good goodAt At supper Wado told how he had discovered the herd lie had become separated from his hunting partner and had finally posted himself on a large rock From this vantage point he saw the herd down below him rooting up something in the valley below The something proved to be the large brown roots of canaigre a lluinex somewhat like the yel ¬ low dock of the north His first shots had killed the young pig but the boar was considerably harder to get getIn In conclusion it may be said that the wild pig or peccary of Arizona New Mexico and Texas ranges southward into Central America Its color is dark gray with u lighter bandlike streak over tho shoulders It is about three feet long An interesting deviation from nig characteristics is the birth of but two young to a litter ISooks state that the collared peccary seldom lives in herds but hunt ¬ ers tell of seeing a hundred or more together in the mountains of northern Mexico When cornered or when one of the herd is wounded the inccary be ¬ comes dangerous Many stories are told of fatal attacks on hunters and quite recently in the region visited on the hunt just described a drove treed a hunter and kept him aloft until he decimated its numbers with his magazine rifle During the winter and early spring the peccary is to be found in washes in the foothills where he finds an abundance of canaigre and other roots during the remainder of tho year its habitat is at a higher elevation The flesh of young peccary is much like veal In the judgment of tin writer this animnl should be protected throughout that piirt of its range which lies within the United States by a closed season during its breeding time and a limit to the number that may be killed in oiie season J G Brown in Forest and Stream
