RODENTIA. : 135 
the bones of the nose. They have four toes before, and five behind, all 
armed with stout nails. 
Hi, cristata, L.; Buff. XII., pl. li and lii. (The Common Por- 
cupine). Inhabits the south of Italy, Spain, and Sicily; it is also 
found in Barbary. The spines are very long, and annulated with 
black and white; a mane composed of long hairs occupies the head 
and neck. The tail is short, and furnished with hollow truncated 
tubes, suspended to slender pedicles, which make a noise when 
shaken by the animal. ‘The chanfrin of the bony head is ex- 
tremely convex. There are other species not very different, but 
with a less convex head, in India and in Africa. 
We separate from the true Porcupines the 
AtueruBus, Cuv. 
Where neither the head nor the muzzle is inflated, and in which we 
observe a long non-prehensile tail; the toes are like those of the true 
Porcupines. 
Hyst. fasciculata, L.; Buff. VII. 77; Schreb. 170.* (The 
Pencil-tailed Porcupine). * The upper part of the spines on the 
back grooved, and the tail terminated by a bundle of flattened 
horny slips, constricted from space to space. 
Eretison, F. Cuv. 
The Ursons have a flat cranium; the muzzle short, and not convex; 
the tail of a middle size, and the spines short, and half hidden in the 
hair. One species only is known, the 
Hystrix dorsata, L.; Buff. XII. lv. (The Urson.) From 
North America. + 
Synetueres, F’, Cuv. 
The muzzle short and thick; the head vaulted in front, and the spines 
short; the tail long, naked at the extremity, and prehensile, like that 
of an Opossum or Sapajou. There are only four toes, all armed with 
claws; they climb trees. . 
Hyst. prehensilis, L.; Cuendu, Marcg., Hoitztlaquatzin, Her- 
nand.t: (Thé Prehensile-tailed Porcupine, or Coendou) (a). Hair of 
a brownish-black; spines black and white. 
* This figure, copied from Seba, I, 52, i, is too short. That of Buff. is better, 
but the slips at the end of the tail are not represented with sufficient distinctness. 
We can conjecture no reason by which De Blainville and Desmarets refer this spe- 
cies to the genus of Rats; it has the teeth and other characters of the Porcupines, 
external as well as internal. 
+ The pretended Coendow of Buffon is also an Urson, but a disfigured specimen 
that had lost its hair. See Buff. XII, 54. 
t This word, in the Mexican language, means Spiny Opossum. It is the long 
tailed Coendou of Buff. Supp. VII, 78; but the muzzle in the figure is too short. 
The figure of Hernandez conveys a much better idea of the animal. 
= (a) The chief peculiarity of the Coendou is, that, with the chief peculiarities 
of the Rodentia, it possesses also a locomotive organ, of which all other species of 
Rodentia have no trace. This is the prehensile tail, like some of the Simia, which, 
