"266 THE PORCUPINE. 



They grunt like a hog, and wallow, like it, in the mire. 

 They love to be near water, and spend more of their time 

 there, than upon land. They are chiefly in creeks and har- 

 bors of salt water. They multiply in great numbers, make 

 themselves holes in the ground, and sleep for several months. 

 During this torpid state, their hairs (and we should also sup- 

 pose their prickles) fall ; and they are renewed upon their 

 revival. They are usually very fat ; and although their flesh 

 be insipid, soft, and stringy, yet the Indians find it to their 

 taste, and consider it as a very great delicacy. 



THE PORCUPINE. 



Those arms which the Hedgehog possesses in miniature, 

 the Porcupine has in a more enlarged degree. The short 

 prickles of the Hedgehog, are, in this animal, converted into 

 shafts. In the one, the spines are about an inch long ; in the 

 other, a foot. The Porcupine is about two feet long, and 

 fifteen inches high. Like the Hedgehog, it appears a mass of 

 misshapen flesh, covered with quills, from ten to fourteen 

 inches long, resembling the barrel of a goose-quill in thickness, 

 but tapering and sharp at both ends. These, whether con- 

 sidered separately or together, afford sufficient subject to de- 

 tain curiosity. Each quill is thickest in the middle; and 

 inserted into the animal's skin, in the same manner as fea- 

 thers are found to grow upon birds. It is within-side spongy, 

 like the top of a goose-quill ; and of different colors, being 

 white and black alternately, from one end to the other. The 

 largest are often found fifteen inches long, and a quarter of an 

 inch in diameter ; extremely sharp, and capable of inflicting 

 a mortal wound. They seem harder than common quills, 

 being difficult to be cut, and solid at that end which is not 

 fixed in the skin. If we examine them in common, as they 

 grow upon the animal, they appear of two kinds : the one 

 such as I have already described ; the other, long, flexible, 

 and slender, growing here and there among the former. 

 There is still another sort of quills, that grow near the tail, 

 white and transparent, like the writing quills, and that seem 



