THE PORCUPINE. 



177 



also been detected in ravaging a garden, which they had plundered 

 of turnips, parsnips, carrots, maize, and other vegetables. The mif-v 

 chievous creatures had burrowed beneath them, bitten through their 

 roots, and carried them away to their subterranean storehouses. The 

 maize they had procured by cutting the stalks near the level of the 

 ground. 



The Ondatra lives mostly in burrows, which it digs in the banks of 

 the river in which it finds its food, but sometimes takes up its abode in 

 a different kind of habitation, according to the locality and the soil. In 

 the stiff clay banks of rivers the Ondatra digs a rather complicated 

 series of tunnels, so.me of them extending to a distance of fifteen or 



The Musquash, or Musk Kat, or Ondatra (Fiber Zibel/iicus). 



twenty yards, and sloping upward. There are generally three or four 

 entrances, all of which open under water, and unite in a single cham- 

 ber, where the Ondatra makes its bed. The couch of the luxurious an- 

 imal is composed of sedges, water-lily leaves, and similar plants, and is 

 so large as to fill a bushel basket. On marshy ground, and especially 

 if it be supplied by springs, the Ondatra builds little houses that rise 

 about three or four feet above the water, and look something like small 

 haycocks. 



The Porcupine has long been rendered famous among men by the 

 extraordinary armory of pointed spears wdiich it bears upon its back, 

 and which it was formerly fabled to launch at its foes with fatal pre- 

 cision. 



This animal inhabits many parts of the world, being found in Africa, 



M 



