MAMMALS OF MINNESOTA. 247 



would be naturally expected from its clumsy habit and slug- 

 gish nature. Our own personal acquaintance with the animal 

 is confined to the period of a visit to the St. Louis river in June 

 and July. There upon the northern limits of pinery cutting it 

 may be seen at its best and is at home in the fullest sense. It 

 may be best to introduce the animal to the reader in the same 

 way that we formed its acquaintance. Imagine, then, a few 

 hours before midnight, a birch canoe, with a flaming torch in 

 the bow, propelled quietly down the stream in the shadow of 

 the banks which are themselves brightly illuminated for some 

 distance ahead by our light. We are watching for the lumi- 

 nous eyes of the deer, which, startled in their feeding places 

 stand quaking at the sudden apparition. Our attention is 

 attracted by a most peculiar clattering sound evidently the 

 teeth of some animal in very rapid motion, but more rapid and 

 louder than anything we had ever heard. The source of the 

 sound we are at first unable to make out, but again we start at the 

 sound of heavy feet and crackling branches. Some heavy 

 animal comes down to the water's edge where the banks are 

 covered with a new growth of arrow-head leaf (Sagittaria) 

 succulent and green, for it is June and the receding waters 

 have but lately exposed the roots to the sun. The clatter of 

 teeth is again heard very loud and inexplicable until we make 

 out the gray form of a burly porcupine which at once starts 

 up the bank much as an overfed hog might do. A shot 

 brought the animal to the water's edge where, after flounder- 

 ing about a little, it began to swim toward us evidently in a 

 vindictive mood. Another shot made it ours and we found it 

 an imense animal measuring over three feet from its blunt 

 muzzle to the end of the spiny tail. The stomach of this speci- 

 men, a full-grown male, contained nothing but the finely com- 

 minuted shoots of Sagittaria. On the same night at about 

 eleven o'clock we encountered a second individual which after 

 receiving a shot clambered with comparative agility into the 

 top of a tall tree. 



It should not be concluded from the above account that the 

 porcupine is strictly nocturnal. In the afternoon they may be 

 seen feeding along the meadows, using their four-clawed hands 

 with awkward cleverness in bringing branches or grass tufts 

 within reach of their mouths. If alarmed they clamber under 

 the overhanging banks, or under roots of upturned trees, draw- 

 ing the body together with the quills bristling, and there lie 

 in fancied security. Indeed, in such a position they are more 



