200 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP. 



or plantigrade, like a bear, and the soles are naked, 

 but along their sides and between the toes grows 

 a thick fringe of long coarse hair, which acts like 

 snow-shoes in sustaining the animal's weight on the 

 snow, in which its low-hung body leaves a deep rut 

 as it tramps along. The hemlock, sugar-maple, 

 basswood, ash, and slippery elm in the East, and 

 in the West the cottonwood, are its favorites, these 

 having a thick, juicy underbark. Its depredations 

 occasionally kill trees, especially its habit of girdling 

 them, but the total of damage in this way is tri- 

 fling. Sometimes, in winter, it invades the orchard 

 and gnaws the bark from young orchard trees or 

 despoils a nursery, but the harm thus done is 

 never very great. 



In summer the porcupine wanders more widely 

 and enjoys a more varied fare, eating young leaves 

 and buds of shrubs, herbage, and many roots and 

 vegetables. Dr. Merriam mentions their fond- 

 ness for lily-pads in the Adirondacks and tells us 

 that they sometimes quarrel for possession of a 

 stranded log by which these dainties may be 

 reached, snarling, growling, and pushing one an- 

 other away or even into the water, but not biting, 

 although their great front teeth might inflict seri- 

 ous wounds. In the fall, mast, and especially 

 beechnuts, forms a staple article of diet, as with 

 other large rodents. He is fond of apples, Indian 

 corn, etc., which he eats sitting up on his haunches, 

 holding the morsel up to his mouth like a squirrel. 



