WILD BOAR. These animals were denizens of the British forests from the most remote ages, and probably were still numerous there at the time our MS. was penned. For although the Duke of York has only translated one of the eleven chapters relating to the natural history, chase, or capture by traps of the wild boar, and does not give us any original remarks upon the hunting of them, as he has of the stag and the hare, still it was most likely because he considered these two the royal sport _par excellence_, and not because there were none to hunt in England in his day. If the latter had been the case, he would in all probability have omitted even the chapter he does give us, as he has done with those written by Gaston de Foix on the deer, the reindeer, and the ibex and chamois (p. 160).
In some doggerel verses which are prefixed to "Le venery de Twety and Gyfford" (in Vesp. B. XII.), the wild boar is classed as a beast of venery. In the a "Boke of St. Albans" the wild boar is also mentioned as a beast of venery.
When Fitzstephen wrote his description of London in 1174, he says wild boars as well as other animals frequented the forests surrounding London, and it would certainly be a long time after this before these animals could have been extirpated from the wild forests in more remote parts of the country.
_Sounder_ is the technical term for a herd of wild swine. "How many herdes be there of bestes of venery? Sire of hertis, or bisses, of bukkes and of doos. A soundre of wylde swyne. A bevy of Roos" (Twety and Gyfford). In the French Twici we have also _Soundre dez porcs_.
_Farrow_ (Sub.) was a term for a young pig, in Mid. Eng. _farh_, _far_, Old Eng. _fearh_ (Strat.). Farrow (verb) was the term used when sows gave birth to young.
G. de F. says that wild boars can wind acorns as far as a bear can (p. 58), and turning to his chapter on bears, we find that he says that bears will wind a feeding of acorns six leagues off!
_Routing_ or rooting. A wild boar is said to root when he is feeding on ferns or roots (Turb., pp. 153, 154).
_Argus_, as our MS. calls the dew-claws of the boar, were in the later language of venery called the _gards_ (Blome, p. 102). Twety and Gyfford named the dew-claws of the stag _os_ and of the boar _ergos_. "How many bestis bere _os_, and how many _ergos?_ The hert berith _os_ above, the boor and the buk berith _ergos_."