HYSTEICID^)— ERETHIZON— GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION. 393 



and westward to Northern Ohio. It also extended southward along the 

 Alleghanies through Pennsylvania, and possibly into Virginia and the mount- 

 ainous portions of Eastern Kentucky.* It seems not to have occurred in the 

 immediate vicinity of the sea-coast south of Maine, but existed in Western 

 and Central New England southward to Connecticut. It seems also to have 

 been absent from Southeastern New York, and southward from nearly all of 

 the region east of the Alleghanies. It was found south of the Great Lakes over 

 most of the region north of the Ohio,f in Northern Pennsylvania and Western 

 New York, and in the mountainous districts farther south. As late as 1813, it 

 was still to be found in the western part of Saratoga County,New York.} Being 

 an animal of the forest, it has shared the fate of other forest animals, and has 

 already disappeared over considerable portions of its former habitat, particularly 

 along its southern border. In New England, it is rarely found south of 

 Central Maine and Northern New Hampshire, but ranges, west of the Con- 

 necticut River, still nearly or quite to the Massachusetts line. In 1840, Dr. 

 Emmons gave it as common in the vicinity of Williamstown, Massachusetts^ 

 An isolated colony still survives on the slopes of Mount Monadnock in South- 

 ern New Hampshire, and it is also still found in portions of Pennsylvania. 

 Probably its former southern range extended generally nearly or quite to the 

 southern boundary of the Alleghanian fauna. 



To the northward, its range extended nearly or quite to the limit of trees, 

 and to the westward probably to the eastern border of the Great Saskatchewan 

 Plains, where it passes gradually into the western variety. Hearne, however, 

 eighty years since, spoke of it as being scarce north of Churchill River, 

 where he met with only six individuals during a residence of six years. 



The western form (vai\ epixanthus) still extends southward, in the mount- 

 ains, to New Mexico and Arizona, and may probably be found in suitable 



"DeKay, probably on the authority of C'atesby, gives its range as extending to the northern parts 

 of Virginia, and Kentucky (Nat. Hist, of New York, pt. i, p. 79); but Audubon and Bachman state that 

 they had " sought for it without success in the mountains of Virginia, and could never hear of it in 

 Kentucky". Prof. N. S. Shaler also informs me that he has also failed to hear of it here, although 

 this region one would naturally expect would come within its earlier range. 



tGodman, on the authority of Dr. Best, says the " porcupine is seldom found in Ohio south of 

 Dayton"; but that they were then still (in 1S26) numerous on the Saint Mary's River (.Godman, Amer. Nat. 

 Hist., vol. ii, p. 152). Dr. J. M. Wheaton informs me that a few still survive in Clark, Champaigne, and 

 Ross Counties, and that it was common ten years since in Putnam County. Mr. E. W. Nelson writes me 

 that the Porcupine was formerly rather common, though never abundant, in all of the wooded region 

 north of the Ohio River, but that it is not now found (west of Ohio) south of the forests of Northern 

 Wisconsin and Northern Michigan. 



t Audubon and Bachman, Quad. N. Amer., vol. i, p. £85. 



§ Quad. Mass., p. 72. 



