1918] The Ottawa Naturalist. 117 



the Bonnechere who left a set of harness in a shed in the woods over 

 summer, found it chewed to pieces in the fall. Like all herbivores, 

 porcupines are extremely fond of salt, and will greedily gnaw anything 

 with a salty taste. I have been told of a camp on the Gatineau where 

 they completely ate away a veranda post that had some brine spilt on 

 it; and a similar example is afforded by the experience of a friend of 

 mine on a canoe trip through Algonquin Park. One night he was 

 awakened by a deep reverberating noise repeated again and again, 

 coming from some little distance down stream. My friend said it 

 sounded like a horse galloping over a wooden bridge, but there was 

 no road within many miles and there was no bridge. At last he got 

 up to investigate, and discovered that the disturbance was caused by a 

 porcupine gnawing the inside of an empty bacon case left on the shore 

 by a drive gang. Under the vigorous rasping of the porcupine's 

 powerful teeth, the boards of the case thundered like a brass drum. 

 But the appetite for salt does not explain why a porcupine last summer 

 gnawed many square feet of the dry weather beaten boards of an old 

 shed at an abandoned mine near Calabogie. Both inside the building 

 and outside, from the ground level up to a height of six or eight feet, 

 he chewed away large patches of the wood, in some places eating 

 completely through the boards. "What sapidity he discovered here 

 is a mystery. 



It is said that when quarrelling with one of its own kind, the 

 porcupine gives vent to a variety of noises, but the only sound I have 

 ever heard them make is a kind of whining grunt, best described as 

 just about the kind of sound you would expect from a porcupine. But 

 it seldom expresses its emotions vocally, and when assailed it keeps 

 its back to the foe, and maintains a dogged silence. All one winter. 

 my friend Mr. Armon Burwash and I paid weekly visits to a large 

 old porcupine who lived in a hole in the rocks on a bare hillside. We 

 knew he was old, for it must have taken him years to accumulate the 

 dirt that matted his quills together, and which exhaled a strong, but 

 truth to tell, inoffensive enough, odor of cedar. The den was simply 

 a low tunnel open at either end, and roofed over with a couple of 

 large blocks of limestone. We always found him in, though his 

 lodging was in a most exposed situation, open to all the winds of 

 heaven, and on a cold winter's night it certainly could not have been 

 described as cosy. But be it ever so humble there's no place like 

 home, and our friend seemed well satisfied with his quarters. We 

 called him our friend, but it. is doubtful if he reciprocated the senti- 

 ment. Mr. Burwash suggested that he used to say to himself when he 

 heard us coming: "Confound it, there are those two hanged nuisances 

 again!" For every week we tried some new scheme to drive him out 

 of his den; but all in vain. We reached in through a hole in the roof 

 and slapped him on the back, the only result being a dozen long 



