COMMON PORCUPINE. 3 



extremely large and strong : the fore feet have 

 four toes; the hind feet five; all armed with 

 strong crooked claws : the tail is covered with 

 short and rather flattish quills, which are often 

 abrupt or truncated, rather than pointed at the 

 extremities. This animal is a native of Africa, 

 India, and the Indian islands : it is also found in 

 some of the warmer parts of Europe, and is 

 said to be not very uncommon in Italy and Sicily; 

 but is supposed to have been originally im- 

 ported into those parts of Europe from other re- 

 gions. Mr. Brydone, in his tour through Sicily, 

 informs us, that in the district about Baia? the 

 Porcupine is frequently seen ; and that in a shoot- 

 ing party on the Monte Barbaro he and his com- 

 panions killed several, but that the novelty of the 

 amusement was its chief merit, and that he would 

 not at any time give " a day's partridge for a 

 month porcupine-shooting." He adds, that the 

 party dined on porcupine that day, but that it is 

 "extremely luscious, and soon palls upon the ap- 

 petite/' 



The power of darting its quills with great vio- 

 lence, and to a considerable distance, so confi- 

 dently ascribed to the Porcupine by the writers 

 of antiquity, as well as by some of the modems, 

 seems now pretty generally exploded : it perhaps 

 originated from an accidental circumstance ; and 

 it is surely not improbable that the Porcupine 

 possessing, like other quadrupeds, the power of 

 corrugating or shaking the general skin of its 

 body, may sometimes by this motion cast off a 



