202 CLASS MAMMALIA. 



This observation, however, does not apply to the spines 

 with which a few Mammalia are furnished ; nor does nature 

 appear, in this particular, consistent with her general ope- 

 rations ; a new creation seems called into an unusually- 

 limited action : and the Porcupine, Hedgehog, Tenrec, and 

 Echimys, are furnished with spines differently modified, 

 but which appear to be of no other use than as weapons 

 bestowed on animals not otherwise endowed with courage 

 or ferocity to use them, or particularly exposed beyond 

 others to hostile attacks, or playing any very important or 

 prominent character in the great theatre of the world. 



It is in this genus, and more especially in the species of 

 the Common Porcupine, that the spines are most com- 

 pletely developed. Their nature, however, more particu- 

 larly belongs to the specific description of the animal, 

 though they are too well known to need much detail. 



The natural history of the Porcupine has been long a 

 great desideratum, until M. F. Cuvier, with his usual at- 

 tentive observations on many of the Italian specimens, was 

 enabled, in the year 1821, to add many interesting facts to 

 its history, and to strip it of many of those errors with 

 which simplicity and credulity had invested it. 



This species has been the subject of numerous misrepre- 

 sentations. Buffon indeed corrected some of these, and 

 principally the belief, that these animals had the faculty of 

 darting their spines ; but others of these errors were not 

 detected by him, for want of means of observation, and 

 these have survived to a much later period. 



We are informed by Agricola, that the Porcupine of 

 Italy was an exotic in that country, brought either from 

 Africa or India. It has, however, long been naturalized in 

 the South of Europe. The only difference observed be- 

 tween the Porcupine of Italy and that of Africa is, that 

 the former is rather less than the latter, and that the spines 

 are not so strong. That these differences, however, result 



