GROUSE AND WOODCOCK SHOOTING 105 



Before I had time to get up, a big porcupine bolted 

 out of the brake with every quill erect, and with the dog 

 snapping at his heels. I was in the act of pulling at the 



animal as it ran across a small clearing, when G 



shouted, " Don't shoot ; knock the beast on the head." 

 Now, although in reality almost as harmless as the 

 common hedgehog, an enraged porcupine is a formidable- 

 looking customer, and having learned to my sorrow how 

 simple a matter it is to break the stock of one's gun by 

 striking it against anything animate, or inanimate, I 

 looked round for a tree or bush from which to cut a stick. 

 But before I succeeded in sawing through, with my knife, 

 a particularly tough hickory bough, the quarry had 

 climbed into a spruce fir, amongst the topmost branches 

 of which he sat grunting and showing his teeth. " Give 

 me a hump up, friend," said G — — , who now joined me 

 with something very like a grin overspreading his lean, 

 sun-tanned face. " Don't be afraid to hit him when I 

 hustle him out of his ' crony,' for he won't bite," added 



G , as he commenced to swarm up the resinous 



trunk of the tree. After a good deal of poking and 

 shaking, the porcupine was dislodged from his bough 

 and dropped on all-fours within a foot of where I was 

 standing. Still uttering pig-like grunts, away he started 

 towards the next spruce, but the dog succeeded in turning 

 him into a wide clearing ere he gained the tree, and off 

 went I in pursuit, tripping over hidden stumps and logs 

 as I ran. For a few minutes our strange-looking quarry 

 led us a merry hunt ; but at length it was driven into a 



