The boar usually remains by the sow for
thirty days. The number of the litter and the period gestation is
the same as in the case of the domesticated congener. The sound of the
grunt also is similar; only that the sow grunts continually, and the
boar but seldom. Of the wild boars such as are castrated grow to the
largest size and become fiercest: to which circumstance Homer
alludes when he says:-
'He reared against him a wild castrated boar: it was not like a
food-devouring brute, but like a forest-clad promontory.'
Wild boars become castrated owing to an itch befalling them in
early life in the region of the testicles, and the castration is
superinduced by their rubbing themselves against the trunks of trees.
29
The hind, as has been stated, submits to the stag as a rule only
under compulsion, as she is unable to endure the male often owing to
the rigidity of the penis. However, they do occasionally submit to the
stag as the ewe submits ram; and when they are in heat the hinds avoid
one another. The stag is not constant to one particular hind, but
after a while quits one and mates with others. The breeding time is
after the rising of Arcturus, during the months of Boedromion and
Maimacterion.
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