AMERICAN FORESTRY 



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and swaggers boldly about the garden at midday, help- 

 ing himself to whatever appeals most strongly to his 

 appetite. When pursued, he scrambles in frantic haste 

 for his burrow, his black heels twinkling in the sunshine 

 as he goes ; but on reaching safety, he is likely to turn 

 about and thrust out his nose to chuckle defiance at his 

 pursuers. If cornered, he is always ready to fight any- 

 thing or anybody, and a dog lacking experience in such 



OUR PORCUPINES CLIMB TREES 



Figure 10. If occasion demands, the porcupine in this picture shows 

 what the animal resorts to in his usual deliberate way. Courtesy of 

 The University Society, Incorporated. From "Mammals of America." 



natters is likely to get the worst of it, for a woodchuck's 

 incisors are weapons not to be despised. If their den is 

 dug out, the woodchucks often manage to escape by bur- 

 rowing off through the soil after the manner of moles, 

 filling up the holes behind them as they move along, 

 and evidently not coming to the surface until sufficient 

 time has elapsed to ensure their safety ; though how they 

 age to avoid suffocation in the meantime is a ques- 

 : difficult to answer." 



What I take to be a probable explanation of this re- 

 markable habit of the woodchuck is, that in all old bur- 

 rows made by the animal there may be one or more 

 blind passages leading from the central living-space in 

 one direction or another, but which in no instance come 

 quite to the surface at their further ends. Now when a 

 woodchuck that has constructed its burrow in this man- 

 ner finds that somebody is trying to dig him out, and is 

 coming uncomfortably close to making a success of it, 



all he has to do is to run into one of these blind alleys 

 of his, and quickly seal up the entrance to it with earth. 

 The diggers pass this point as they follow what they take 

 to be the main passage of the burrow, leaving the wood- 

 chuck behind them in the branch-burrow, now closed at 

 both ends, but containing an ample amount of air to per- 

 mit him to breathe until his would-be captors give up 

 the pursuit; then the prisoner may either back out into 

 the main burrow, or dig to the surface at the other end. 

 I have often noticed, where attempts have been made to 

 dig woodchucks out especially old fellows that, when 

 not taken, there is next day another burrow which did 

 not exist before, and which was opened from within, 

 outwards. This is the way I explain to myself how the 

 thing happens. Farmers often use a hard, close- 

 shooting shotgun, with coarse shot and good powder, to 



Photograph by A. R. Dugmore. 



NADA PORCUPINE 



Figure 11. As the animal appears when its quills are thrown forward 

 in a defensive attitude. Two at a birth, once a year, is the rule with 

 these rodents; they are ugly, prickly little things. 



kill woodchucks, and in this way destroy quite a num- 

 ber. Many others are caught in steel traps, but from 

 these the animal often escapes by gnawing off its own 

 leg as near the jaws of the trap as possible. Some- 

 times a woodchuck will pull the trap down a burrow as 

 far as he can d'o so, and seal himself in; it then becomes 

 quite a task to unearth him and pull him out, for he 

 hangs on like an armadillo in a similar predicament. 



