ERETHIZONTID&. ERETHIZONTIN&. ERETHIZON. 397 
they endeavor to equalize matters by living in high altitudes in the 
mountains. While the American Porcupines are to a great extent 
arboreal, yet they are by no means restricted to a life in the trees, 
and the different species are frequently met with traveling on the 
ground, and in the western part of the United States it is not uncom- 
mon to find the Porcupine out on the prairie far from any timber. 
They are inoffensive animals when unmolested, but disagreeable 
creatures to handle or meddle with by either man or dog. 
Fam. VII. Erethizontide. 
Form stout; long acute spines loosely attached to skin. Skull 
with facial portion short, and the jugal without inferior angle; 
molars more or less completely rooted. 
Subfam. I. Erethizontine. 
79. Erethizon. Long-spined Porcupines. 
$2 fp i f= 20. 
I—I I—I 3-3 
Erethizon F. Cuv., Mém. du Mus. Hist. Nat., Paris, 1x, 1822, p. 426. 
Type Hystrix dorsatus Linneus. 
Eucritus Fisch., Mém. Soc. Imp. Moscow, v, 1817, pp. 372, 411. 
Echinothrix Brookes, Cat. Anat. Zodl., 1828, /d. Trans. Linn. Soc. 
Lond., xvi, 1829, pt. I, p. 97. 
Echinoprocta Gray, Proc. Zodl. Soc., 1865, pp. 321-322 desc. 
Four toes on fore feet, five on hind feet, all with strong claws; 
limbs short, strong; no naked mesial line on upper lip, which is 
covered with hair and notched above the incisors; tail short, thick, 
non-prehensile, covered above with stiff hairs and spines, and on the 
sides and beneath with stiff bristles. 
415. epixanthum (Erethizon), Brandt, Mém. Acad. Imp. Scien., 
St. Petersb., 6th Ser., 1835, p. 390, pl. 1, 9. Elliot, Syn. N. 
Am. Mamm., 1901, p. 265. 
pilosus. Peale (nec Rich.), U. S. Expl. Exped., Mamm., 1848, 
p- 46. 
WESTERN PORCUPINE. 
Type locality. California? Unalaska? 
Geogr. Distr. State of Sonora, Mexico, into New Mexico, east- 
ward to Missouri, west to the Pacific, and north to Alaska and the 
limit of trees. 
Genl. Char. Light tips of long hairs of dorsal surface greenish 
yellow. Average length of nasals exceed interorbital breadth, or over 
