CHINCHILLAS AND VISCACHAS 1341 



way homeward in the early morning, porcupines remain concealed during the day- 

 light hours, either in caves or clefts of rocks, or in burrows excavated by them- 

 selves. They generally prefer rocky hills, and although in Europe they are usually 

 found either solitary or in pairs, in India they are frequently gregarious. Their 

 food is entirely vegetable, and consists mainly of roots, although in cultivated dis- 

 tricts they do much damage to crops, garden vegetables, and such fruit as they can 

 reach. In Europe the pairing season takes place early in the year, and in the 

 spring or commencement of the summer the female produces from two to four 

 young, in a nest formed of leaves, grass, and root fibres. The young are born in 

 an advanced state, having their eyes open, and their bodies covered with soft flexi- 

 ble spines which soon harden by exposure to the air. When frightened or irri- 

 tated, porcupines erect their quills, with a peculiar rattling of the hollow ones at 

 the tip of the tail, at the same time stamping with their hind-feet. If attacked by 

 <iogs or other four-footed foes, they rush backward and inflict severe wounds with 

 the long quills on their hind-quarters, which are sometimes driven deeply into the 

 flesh of their antagonists. Dogs, according to Dr. Jerdon, readily follow the scent 

 of porcupines, and thus track them to their lairs. Leopards are said to dispatch 

 them easily by a single well-directed blow on the head. From the large size of their 

 teeth and jaws, porcupines have great gnawing powers; and the writer has seen in 

 India tusks of elephants which have been half eaten by these animals as they lay 

 in the jungles. The flesh of porcupines is excellent eating, and is said to resemble 

 something between pork and veal in flavor. 



B h T '1 d ^ke brush-tailed porcupines, of which one species {Atherura afri- 

 Porcupines ra;m ) inhabits Western and Central Africa, and the other (A. mac- 

 rura) Burma and the Malayan region, are much smaller and more 

 rat-like animals than the true porcupines, from which they are distinguished at a 

 glance by their long and scaly tails terminating in a tuft of bristles. The body is 

 covered with flattened and grooved spines, which are not much longer on the hind- 

 quarters than on the back and shoulders. In the Indian species the length of the 

 head and body may reach as much as twenty-two inches; that of the tail being 

 about ten inches. In color this species is dark brown, with the tips of the spines 

 sometimes paler. The longer spines on the hind-quarters are mostly white; the 

 under parts, and the bristles at the end of the tail, are whitish. 



G , , A rare porcupine from Borneo ( Tricky s guentheri) differs so mark- 



Porcupines e dly from the preceding in the characteristics of its skull, that it is 

 regarded as indicating a third genus of the subfamily. It is distin- 

 guished externally from the brush-tailed porcupines by its shorter spines, and the 

 narrow parallel-sided bristles of the tail. 



CHINCHILLAS AND VISCACHAS 

 Family CHINCHILLID^ 



The remaining porcupine-like Rodents are confined to South and Central 

 America and the West Indies. Those included in the present family are few in 



