574 THE CANADIAN PORCUPINE, OR UR 
The quills which cover the body ave very short in proportion to the size of the animal, 
and instead of preserving the rounded, bamboo-like aspect of the ordinary Poreupine- 
quills, are flattened like so many blades of grass. The tail is scaly throughout a 
considerable part of its length, but at the tip is garnished with a tuft of most extra- 
ordinary-looking objects, which can hardly be ealled hairs or quills, but, as Buffon 
remarks, look very like narrow, irregular strips of Pern: The colouring of the 
quills is rather various, but as a general rule, they are black towards the extremity and 
white towards the base. They are very sharply pointed, and are remarkable for a deep 
groove that runs along their entire length. Upon the head the quills are not more than 
one inch long, but on the middle of the body they reach four or even five inches. Among 
these quills there are a few long and very slender spines or bristles, which project beyond 
the others. 
The Tufted-tailed Poreupine has been found at Fernando Po, and is an inhabitant of 
India and the Peninsula of Malacca. 
The Urson, Caweuaw, or CANADIAN PORCUPINE, is a native of North America, 
where it is most destructive to the trees among which it lives. 
Its chief food consists of living bark, 
which it strips from the branches as cleanly 
as if it had been furnished with a sharp knife. 
When it begins to feed, it ascends the tree, 
commences at the highest branches, and eats 
its way reevlarly downward. Having finished 
one tree, it takes to another, and then to a 
third, always choosing those that run in the 
same line ; so that its “path through the woods 
may easily be traced by the line of barked 
and dying trees which it leaves in its track. 
A single ‘Urson has been known to destroy a 
hundred trees in a single winter, and another is 
recorded as having killed some two or three 
acres of timber. 
lt is a tolerably quiet animal, and easily 
tamed; although subject to sudden fits of 
alarm at any strange object. One of these 
animals was so entirely domesticated, as to 
come voluntarily, and take vegetables or fruit 
from the hand of its master, and would rub 
itself against him after the manner of an 
affectionate cat. When irritated or alarmed, 
it has a curious habit of striking sharply with 
its tail, which is thickly set with short quills, 
and causing no small damage to the object 
of attack. In the work of Messrs. Audubon 
and Bachman is a very amusing little story 
of the manner in which the tame Urson 
above mentioned repelled an attack made 
upon it by a fierce doe. 
“A large, ferocious, and exceedingly trouble- 
some mastiff, belonging to the neighbourhood, 
CANADIAN PORCUPINE, OR URSON.—Frethizon dorsdtum. had been in the habit of digging a hole under 
the fence, and entering our earden. Early 
one morning we saw him making a dash at 
some object in the corner of the fence, which proved to be our Porcupine, which had, 
during the nicht, made its ese ape from the cage. 
The dog seemed regardless of all its threats, and probably supposing it to be an 
