CANADA PORCUPINE ^9 



born fully equipped with barbed quills, teeth, claws and the 

 sense organs formed and probably ready to function. 



3. There are very few indications that porcupines possess the 

 play instincts usually observable in warm blooded animals or 

 this instinct of activity if present at all disappears soon after 

 birth. 



4. Porcupines are very easily tamed. They usually eat from 

 the experimenter's hands one day after capture and were regu- 

 larly at work within a week. This docility is as characteristic 

 of old aninials as of young ones. 



5. Porcupines ward off all enemies, except those of their own 

 species with erected quills, by powerful strokes with the tail 

 and by quick side and upward lurches of the main part of the 

 body. In all minor quarrels they meet their own kind from 

 the front and with adpressed quills, showing to that extent a 

 consciousness of kind. They do not throw their quills as darts 

 but all quills are barbed so that they cling to the victim on 

 very slight contact thus giving the erroneous impression that 

 the quills are hurled. 



6. The hind feet of the porcupine are well adapted to climb- 

 ing, or standing and walking erect on a horizontal surface. 

 The forefeet or hands are more mobile and especially adapted 

 to grasping and holding, although the thumb is beneath the 

 surface and the digits move in unison. 



7. As a subject in experimental study, the porcupine is steady, 

 industrious, cleanly, and harmless. They are sufficiently strong 

 to use large apparatus and yet so docile that they perform well 

 in class demonstration work. The chief hindrance is the un- 

 certainty of life in captivity though the death rate has not 

 been greater than that found by Hagenbeck in his experience 

 with wild animals, several species of which he has not been 

 able to keep .alive till he could get them to his Tiergarten. 



8. The natural feeding habits of the porcupine are to grasp 

 food first with the mouth but these habits may be permanently 

 modified so that the animals seize and carry food to the mouth 

 with the hands. When the experimenter reached morsels of 

 food to the porcupines they first tried to grasp it with the mouth. 

 If that were prevented they reached with the hand. In 12 

 out of the 14 tests with newly captured animals, they acquired 

 the habit of using their right hand if the experimenter used 



