Ch. 39: Piggy and Hardshell

All the way to school the next morning Peter Rabbit did his best to guess who it might be that they were to learn about that day. "Old Mother Nature said that he is related to some one who lives in Farmer Brown's barnyard," said Peter to himself. "Now who can it be?" But try as he would, Peter couldn't think of any one. He asked Jumper the Hare if he had guessed who it could be. Jumper shook his head.

"I haven't the least idea," said he. "You know I seldom leave the Green Forest and I never have been over to that barnyard in my life, so of course I don't know who lives there."

Danny Meadow Mouse and Whitefoot the Wood Mouse were no wiser, nor was Johnny Chuck. But Chatterer the Red Squirrel, it was plain to see, was quite sure he knew who it was. Chatterer had been over to Farmer Brown's so often to steal corn from the corn crib that he knew all about that barnyard and who lived there. But though Peter and the others teased him to tell them he wouldn't.

So when Old Mother Nature asked who had guessed to whom she had referred Chatterer was the only one to reply. "I think you must have meant the Pig who is always rooting about and grunting in that barnyard," said he.

"Your guess is right, Chatterer," she replied, smiling at the little red-coated rascal, "and this morning I will tell you a little about a relative of his who doesn't live in a barnyard, but lives in the forest, as free and independent as you are. It is Piggy the Peccary, known as the Collared Peccary, also called Wild Pig, Muskhog, Texas Peccary and Javelina.

"He is a true Pig and in shape resembles that lazy, fat fellow in Farmer Brown's barnyard when he was little. You would know him for a Pig right away if you should see him. But in every other way excepting his habit of rooting up the ground with his nose, he is a wholly different fellow. For one thing his legs, though short, are more slender and he is a fast runner. There isn't a lazy bone in him, and he is too active to grow fat.

"His head is large and his nose long, and his tail is almost no tail at all; it is just a little rounded knob, as if he had at one time had a tail and it had been cut off. His hair is coarse and stiff, the kind of hair called bristles. From the back of his head along his back the bristles are long and stout. They are black at the tips so that he appears to have a black back. When Piggy is angry he raises these long bristles so that they stand straight up and this gives him a very fierce appearance.

"His color is so dark a gray that at a distance he appears black. Indeed he is black on many parts of him. Just back of the neck a whitish band crosses the shoulders, and this is why he is called the Collared Peccary. You see he seems to be wearing a collar. On each jaw are two great pointed teeth called tusks, the two upper ones so long that they