I 



THE PORCUPINE. 285 



Mode of defence The quills poisonous. 



finding that ineffectual, he would thrust his head 

 into some corner, making a grunting noise, and 

 erecting his spines; with which his pursuers 

 pricked their noses, till they quarrelled between 

 themselves, and thus enabled him to escape. 



When irritated or offended, the porcupine 

 stamps forcibly on the ground with its hind-feet; 

 and sometimes turns round and runs back upon 

 the offender, at the same time exerting its grunt- 

 ing voice, and shaking the quills about its tail. 

 The usual method of defence, however, adopted 

 by these animals, is to recline themselves on one 

 side; and, on the approach of their enemy, to 

 rise up quickly, and gore him with the erected 

 prickles of their other side. It is also asserted, 

 that when the porcupine meets with serpents, 

 against whom he carries on a perpetual war, he 

 closes himself up like a ball, concealing his head 

 and feet, and then rolls upon and kills them 

 with his bristles, without running any risk of 

 being wounded himself. 



The quills of the porcupine seem to possess 

 some poisonous quality; for M. Le Vaillant ob* 

 serves, that one of his Hottentots, .who had re- 

 ceived a wound in the leg from a porcupine, was 

 ill for more than six months ; and that a gentle- 



7 O 



man, at the Cape, in teazing one of these ani- 

 mals, received a wound in his leg, which nearly 

 occasioned his loss of the limb; and notwith- 

 standing every possible care, he suffered severely 



