It is essentially a sport sui generis. With none other in the world is it capable of fair comparison. Since the time of the Erymanthean boar, wild-pig have formed an object of pursuit in many countries, without, however, requiring Herculean labour to compass their destruction. In France, Germany, Algeria, Albania, and, indeed, wherever the animal is to be found, it is hunted. It is the manner of pursuit as practised in India which characterises it and gives it so great an attraction. In some of the countries above referred to, horses are indispensable ; but dogs are also employed. Guns, pistols, and other weapons, are in common use in addition to spears the only one allowed in India. On this weapon only, and on his own nerve and trusty horse, must the Indian hunter rely, whether with others or alone. He would scorn in either case to trust to other means of offence or defence than that afforded by his tough spear of bamboo tipped with steel.

Ill would it fare with the porcicide who, regardless of the unwritten laws of the hunting-field, ventured to shoot a pig in a country that was in any way rideable. The stigma would attach to him as much as to the man who, in defence of his pheasants, selfishly destroys a fox in England. Most will remember poor Leech's foxhunter, and the intense disgust with which he points to a clerical vulpecide, as he exclaims to his friend, " There, do you see that fellow ? Well, to my certain knowledge, he has destroyed two foxes, and yet he walks about with a hymn-book under his arm !"