Explore "The Trail-Hunter" by Gustave Aimard on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
In the middle of the clearing lay a ripped up horse, which six or eight peccaries were rending, while a dozen others were attacking with their tusks the stem of an enormous tree, in the topmost branches of which a man had sought shelter.
Let us explain to our readers, who probably know little about them, what sort of animals the peccaries are. The peccaries hold the intermediate grade between the domestic pig and the wild boar. Although this animal does not exceed two feet in height, and is not more than three feet long from the end of the snout to the beginning of the tail, it is indubitably one of the most dangerous animals in North America. The animal's jaw is provided with tusks rather like those of the boar, but straight and sharp, their length varying between four and six inches. In the shape of the body it resembles a pig, but the bristles scattered over its warty hide are in colored strips; the part nearest the skin is white, and the point of a chocolate tinge. So soon as the animal is enraged, these bristles stand out like the quills of a porcupine.