A PIG HUNT NEAR GREYTOWN.

Wairarapa Standard, Volume 6, Issue 508, 30 November 1876, Page 2

A PIG HUNT NEAR GREYTOWN.

' A contributor to the London “ Field" write* ▼eiy disparagingly of sport in New Zealand, and gives the following account of a pig bant in the Wairarapa. He says:—“ For rifle, shot-gun or rod, no country that I know of affords so little attraction to the sportsman as New Zealand. The rifle is about as useless a piece of furniture there as a thrashing machine to a washerwoman. The largest quadruped indigenous to the country is a rat Of course, one of the first questions I asked after landing was what sort of shooting I could get in the colony. Ify question was answered by another: “Have you got a rifle ?” and I blnshingly admitted the (oft impeachment. " Then,” says my friend, “yon come along with me, and I will show you such sport as yon never dreamt of.” Delighted with the offer, I at once accepted, but at the same time explained that, as I hod, spent a good many years in South Africa, and had killed every known kind of game to be found between the Zambesi and Cape Town, I might be supposed to have some knowledge of what sport was. “Africa, pooh!— Elephants, buffaloes 1 staff I—you eome along with me, and PU show yon aoma real sport,” says my New Zealander. So the non day we rode out to a village called Oreytown, I some fifty or sixty miles from Wellington, through a good deal of oepulctyml4ookiag country, that aspect being given to it by the immense numbers of large, ben, banosea, dead trunks of treaa, left on what was formerly bush country, hot Where the Ihe wood h*d all been outflow*. The foUewing morning we left the Biataftm, and nde atari ten mike in an emfiiemettoßtfllwu esme IiSST&IXSJZStZt gwsattgg?!»aw*i

, Here I was desired to “ charge my piece,*' and my Now Zealander entered the bush with an amount of caution and a degree of excite meat displayed upon his features that oppor* ' ently indicated the vicinity of some very forj midsble foe indeed. While he gently wended | his way, peering anxiously among the rugged trunks, I turned my attention to the ground ! in scorch of “ spoor,” or slot, but none vis 1 visible. After a little time, a sudden “Hist!" ■ waa heard, and I saw my friend lying at full I length on his stomach behind a huge tree , | trank, and I immediately “ bobbed” down , j and gazed around but nought met my e?e. There certainly appeared a farmyard pig inI sorting his muddy proboscis into a turf of ' J fern, about fifty yards ahead; but my eyes passed him over m search of something to ■hoot at. Seeing nothing, I approached my friend ventre a tern to ascertain the diate cause of his gymnastics, and while so doing master piggy trotted off with on elegant grunt and a cheerful flourish of his tail, Up jumps my friend in great excitement, exclaiming, “Confound it I you've spoilt it; why didn’t you kill him?” “ Which?” I remarked '• Which ? why the pig, of course. I thought you were a duffer; I thought yon knew nothing about sport.” “As how ?” I observed. “ Why tbs deuce didn’t you kill the pig?” “My friend,” I said, astonished. “ Why should I kill the pig? I wanti o pork, X have had my breakfast, and it is not yet lunch time; besides, pip era killed by cutting their throats, and my education did not, so far aa my recollection goes, embrace the learning of the profession of a butcher.” My New Zealander rushed after the pig in hip dudgeon, and I tamed my attention to the more congenial occupation at gathering ferns, and examining the nature at the trees which formed the bosh. On my > return to Wellington I carefully greased my , rifle with mercurial ointment, wrapped the barrels and locks up in fin, and femd op the eases, till my affairs should enable me to leave New Zeeland for some country whan a ; little more excitement is to be "MnHni thus shooting farmyard pigs.