Although these animals are great gluttons, yet they do not attack or devour other animals; sometimes, however, they eat corrupted flesh. Wild boars have been seen to eat horse-flesh, and the skin of the deer, and the claws of birds have been found in their stomach; but this is, perhaps, more from necessity than instinct. It cannot, nevertheless, be denied that they are very fond of blood, and of fresh and bloody flesh, since they will eat their own young, and even children in the cradle. Whenever they find any thing succulent or humid, fat or unctuous, they first lick and then swallow it. It is common for a whole herd of these animals to stop round a heap of new-dug clay, and though it is but very little unctuous, they will all lick it, and some of them swallow great quantities. Their gluttony is as gross as their nature is brutal: they have scarcely any distinct sentiments; the young ones hardly know their mothers, for they are very apt to mistake her, and to suck the first sow that will permit them. Fear and necessity seem to give more instinct and sentiment to wild hogs, for the young are more attached to their mother, who also appears more attentive to them than does the domestic sow. In the rutting season the male follows the female, and generally stays about a month with her in the thickest and most solitary parts of the forest: he is then more fierce than ever, and becomes perfectly furious if another male endeavours to occupy his place, in that case they fight, wound, and sometimes kill each other. The wild sow is never furious but when her young is in danger; and it may be remarked in general, that in almost all wild animals the males are more ferocious in the rutting season, and the females when they have young.