67j 

 No- 48- Hystrix leueura- 



JlBRDON, NO. 204, PAGE 218 ; INDIAN PORCUPINE. 



Although these animals abound in most of the rocky hills in the 

 Madras Presidency, they are not often, except I believe in the 

 Neilgherry Hills when dogs come on them during " beats" for game, 

 killed or even seen by sportsmen. They are exceedingly wary. All 

 men who have waited for bears at daylight* must have heard 

 porcupines rustling home a few minutes before dawn : this must 

 have occurred scores of times to me, but I can only remember one 

 instance of a porcupine showing itself after daylight. A brother 

 sportsman and I were on opposite sides of a ravine waiting for a 

 shot at a bear or panther returning home : just at dawn, a porcu- 

 pine appeared and, as I suppose his house was somewhere between 

 us, trotted and fed, grunting hog-like, about the little valley at our 

 feet, until long after the sun was well up and until I, despairing of 

 other game and bearing in mind his delicious flesh (for that of a 

 porcupine is the most delicate I know of) shot him. Well may the 

 flesh be tender and of delicate flavor for, as many gardeners know 

 to their cost, porcupines are most scrupulously dainty and epicurean 

 as to their diet. A pine apple is left by them until the very night 

 before it is fit to be cut ; peas, potatoes, onions, &c., are not touched 

 untilthe owner has made up his mind that they are just ready for 

 the table. 



At Russelcondah, where they abounded and robbed us ruthlessly, 

 we seldom killed them ourselves, but one of our horse-keepers, by 

 digging a hole near some bed of choice vegetables and waiting in 

 it all night, succeeded in shooting a great number of our delicate 

 pests, which we were delighted to eat whenever we could get them. 

 Strange to say, I have never heard them accused of doing damage 

 to sugar-cane plantations, although they doubtless do so and, by 

 coming later and leaving earlier than other animals, manage to 

 transfer to others, bears, hyaenas, jackals, &c., much blame which 

 they should bear. 



No- 49- Hystrix Bengalensia- 



JERDON, No. 205, PAGE 220 ; BENGAL PORCUPINE. 

 If this be the smaller porcupine common in Orissa, it appeared to 

 * Vide Memoranda following page 79. VAGRANT. 



