The Conifers Curse 



By R. E. Taft. 



OXE pleasant day in June, a matter of twenty years 

 ago, a party of sightseers were strolling through 

 a dense forest of spruce and pine in the Rocky 

 Mountains. A young man suddenly stopped, set his foot 

 on a decaying log and delivered a few ill-chosen and 

 evidently hasty remarks. 



A "splinter" had penetrated the toe of his shoe and 

 caused some inconvenience 

 to one of his pedal extremi- 

 ties incased therein. 



The writer, with an ac- 

 cumulated mountaineering 

 experience of fifteen years, 

 was prepared for such 

 emergencies, and with a 

 small pair of steel pincers 

 soon removed the "splin- 

 ter," which proved to be a 

 porcupine's quill. 



While this "surgical op- 

 eration" was in progress a 

 little girl, with curiosity and 

 sympathy equally divided, 

 came rushing down the 

 mountainside. An un- 

 noticed bush caught her 

 feet and sent her headlong 

 upon the ground. Scream 

 upon scream of agony rent 

 the atmosphere and the 

 writer's pincers were 

 again called into action 

 to extract two porcu- 

 pine quills from the palm 

 of one hand and a dozen 

 more from her body and 

 clothing. 



Five years previous to 

 this time a hunter had emptied both barrels of a shotgun 

 into a belated porcupine. 



As time passed, his adamantine and seemingly imper- 

 ishable barbs had become scattered over about ten square 

 rods of ground, to the inconveniences and results afore- 

 said. 



A few minutes later the party came upon a huge spruce 

 tree with a large section of the trunk near the ground 

 showing clear and white in the rays of sunlight that 

 shot through an open space in the forest. 



The porcupine that had chosen the inner bark of the 

 tree for his midday lunch stopped his work to gaze with 

 apparent wonder at the intrusion upon his domain. 



A well-directed pistol shot put an end to his depre- 

 dations. 



HOW PORCUPINES KILL TREES 



They eat the bark, girdling the tree near the ground, or climbing the 

 tree and stripping the more tender bark from the top. In one tract 

 the author found forty-two out of fifty-seven trees destroyed by 

 porcupines. 



The death-dealt tree was one of hundreds noted in the 

 course of the day that brought from one of the com- 

 pany the query of, "What is a porcupine good for?" In 

 the good old orthodox days the inquiry would have been 

 dismissed with the simple statement that all things were 

 created for a beneficent purpose ; that the purpose became 

 apparent upon close investigation. The close investi- 

 gations of those days 

 brought the conclusions 

 that the fly was a scavenger 

 that preyed upon and de- 

 stroyed disease-breeding 

 filth that the mosquito re- 

 moved bodily impurities 

 that lodged near the human 

 epidermis. 



The science of the day 

 has upset and revised those 

 old theories and a war of 

 extermination is now being 

 waged upon those pests. 



An acquaintance with 

 and study of the habits of 

 the porcupine, extending 

 over a generation of time, 

 has convinced the writer 

 that this rodent has not one 

 redeeming trait, nor can a 

 good reason be given why 

 he should be permitted to 

 exist. Like his brethren, 

 the gopher, the rat and 

 the mouse, he should be 

 billed for extermination. 



In furtherance of this be- 

 lief I began a warfare upon 

 the species with gun, pistol 

 and trap and found at the 

 no inroads had been made 



end of a dozen years that 

 upon the number in my vicinity. 



Every day or two I would find a tree girdled near the 

 ground or denuded of bark to the top. In one instance 

 I measured off a block of ground 50 by 100 feet and 

 found forty-two out of fifty-seven trees therein destroyed 

 by porcupines. Their nocturnal habits made it out of 

 the question to rid a neighborhood of them by shooting, 

 while traps can only be used at the entrance of their dens. 

 There are but two months in the year (May and June) 

 that they are found at large in daylight, and dens are used 

 only while breeding or during cold weather. In summer 

 their nights are spent in foraging and with the approach 

 of daylight they take refuge under a log, rock, clump 



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