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.
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