202 MAMMALIA. 



without weight, because it is very evident that these authors derive 

 their knowledge from Davies, whose observations were limited to 

 a single specimen taken near Quebec. Moreover, the fact that a 

 hibernating animal does not emerge from winter-quarters till June 

 in the latitude of Quebec, affords no reason for supposing it to 

 remain dormant till this late date in more southern localities. 

 Indeed, experience points to a contrary conclusion, as well in the 

 present as in several other species. On the nth of February, 

 1874, I caught an active male at Easthampton, Massachusetts ; 

 and Mr. Elisha Slade writes me that in the vicinity of his home, at 

 Somerset, Bristol County, Mass., the animal "retires to hollow 

 trees, stumps, or fissures of rocks, during cold snaps," and reap- 

 pears with every return of warm weather. During the winter of 

 1 881-1882, unprecedented for its mildness, I several times ob- 

 served it in Lewis County, in Northern New York. 



Family Hystricid^. 



ERETHIZON DORSATUS (Linn-) F. Cuvier. 

 Canada Porcupine. 



The Porcupine is a common and well-known resident of all the 

 wooded parts of the Adirondacks, and is equally abundant in the 

 lowlands and on the higfhest mountains. 



Of all the mammalian inhabitants of North America, not one 

 possesses more striking peculiarities. To a person beholding him 

 for the first time he seems a veritable prodigy. He presents a 

 combination of positive characters which seem directly contradic- 

 tory to his known habits of life. He is about twice the size of a 

 full-grown woodchuck, well-conditioned adults averaging from fif- 

 teen to twenty pounds in weight. His muzzle is short and blunt, 

 and his eyes and ears are small — the latter almost concealed in the 

 bristles of the sides of the head. His neck is short and thick, and 

 his body is large and chunked. He is very compactly built, and 



