THE OTTAWA NATURALIS 



Vol. XXXI. 



JANUARY. 1918. 



No. 10. 



THE CANADA PORCUPINE. 



By Charles Macnamara, Arnprior, Ontario. 



The abrading and compacting which all language undergoes in 

 the course of time have changed the "porcus spinatus" or spiny pig, of 

 the Latins into the "porcupine" of modern English. Zoological 

 classification among the ancients was based on very superficial resem- 

 blances, and so it is not surprising to find that they regarded this 

 short-legged, thickset rodent as a kind of pig. Numerous species of 

 porcupines inhabit the four quarters of the globe. In the Old World, 

 where the family originated, thev are all terrestrial in their habits, and 

 some kinds are armed with quills so enormous that they are often used 

 to make fancy penhandles. The porcupines of the New World are 

 mostly tree-dwellers, and one or two of them have prehensile tails. 

 They seem to haye come across from Africa to tropical America by 

 some very early land connection far older even than the fabled 

 Atlantis. Most of them stayed in the tropics, only one genus of two 

 species having extended north of Mexico. These are the yellow- 

 haired porcupine (Erethizon epixanthus) of the west, and the Canada 

 porcupine (E. dorsatus) of the east. 



Although popularly called the "Canada" porcupine, we in this 

 country cannot claim the animal as our exclusive compatriot, for it is 

 a familiar resident of the wooded regions of all northeastern America 

 as far south and west as Pennsylvania and Ohio. In eastern Ontario 

 it is abundant, and in the course of a day's drive in the spring before 

 the leaves are out, it is not unusual to see three or four of them in the 

 treetops. 



Judging the appearance and expression of animals by our 

 human standards, we are often amazed to find some species, like the 

 elephant or the pig, far more intelligent than it looks. The porcupine, 

 however, looks stupid, and is even more stupid than it looks. A large 

 Canada porcupine, Mr. C. W. Nash tells me, sometimes attains to a 

 body length of three feet; but usually an adult is about two feet long 

 exclusive of the tail, and weighs 25 lbs. to 30 lbs. Its body is thick 

 and heavy, and its movements are slow. Its head is small and pointed, 

 with but scant room for the brain, and the little sleepy eyes are almost 

 lost in the long hair; the nostrils are open, and the lips fail to close 



