2O2 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS 



seen standing gaunt and lifeless in the ravines of the 

 West. The slender green twigs are reached by the 

 animal distributing its weight over several branches, 

 which are then bent back so as to bring the tender 

 shoots through the mouth ; the Canada porcupine 

 also feeds on beech mast like a squirrel, and on 

 water lilies like a vole. 



The puma, the lynx, and the fisher-marten prey 

 upon this porcupine that is when they can ; for an 

 old porcupine is a tough customer to tackle, standing 

 with his vulnerable nose carefully sunk in between 

 his forelegs and his formidable spines abristle as he 

 lashes out with his armed tail. The quills are but 

 loosely fixed in the skin and, being barbed at the 

 points, are readily dragged out, fixing themselves 

 instead into the flesh of the assailant. Sometimes 

 predatory animals are taken full of porcupine quills ; 

 Audubon has recorded the finding in the woods of a 

 lynx in a dying condition from this cause. The 

 animal was quite helpless, its head was greatly 

 inflamed, and it was nearly blind, while its mouth 

 was full of the terrible spines of its intended victim ; 

 the lynx would probably in any case have expired in 

 a day or two. Dogs and wolves have also been 

 found dead from quill wounds. The fisher-marten 

 is said to kill the porcupine by biting it in the belly- 

 probably tunnelling underneath it, as it sits un- 

 suspecting on the thick-fallen snow. 



The Canadian porcupine was the " hystrix pilosus 



