The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals: A Book of Personal Observations

The Overrated Peccary. This reminds me that the collared peccary has been credited with a degree of courage that has been much exaggerated. While a hunted and cornered peccary will fight dogs or men, and put up a savage and dangerous defense, men whom I know in the peccary belt of Mexico have assured me that a drove of peccaries will not attack a hunter who has killed one of their mates, nor keep him up a tree for hours while they swarm underneath him waiting for his blood. I have been assured by competent witnesses that in peccary hunting there is no danger whatever of mass attack through a desire for revenge, and that peccaries fired at will run like deer. A Black Bear Killed a Man for Food. There is on record at least one well-authenticated case of a black bear deliberately going out of his way to cross a river, attack a man and kill him. On May 17, 1907, at a lumber camp of the Red Deer Lumber Company, thirty miles south of Etiomami on the Canadian Northern Railway, Northwest Territory, a cook named T. Wilson was chased by a large black bear, without provocation, struck once on the head, and instantly killed. The bear then picked him up, carried him a short distance, and proceeded to eat him. Ten shots from a .32 calibre revolver had no effect. Later a rifle ball drove the bear away, but only after it had eaten the left thigh and part of the body. (Forest and Stream, Feb. 8, 1908.)