WILD ANIMALS THAT TOOK THEIR OWN PICTURES 



779 



ing a dependence upon .a milk diet. When 

 within 25 yards the doe became restless 

 under the light and turned up the shore 

 toward the old lumber road ; but the 

 fawns, apparently enjoying the illumi- 

 nated shore, ran to and fro in a way to 

 prevent getting the entire group on the 

 small plate. 



\Mth great anxiet); I awaited the mo- 

 ment when the three would come in 

 closer proximity, and several times was 

 greatly tempted to fire the flash when 

 the doe and one fawn were in a good 

 position. Just as the doe reached the 

 trail and when I feared that in the effort 

 to get the three all would escape, the 

 faw^ns ran in behind their mother, pre- 

 paring to follow ,in her clearly intended 

 retreat ; so I gave a shrill whistle, the 

 finger resting on the trigger of the flash- 

 light for instant action. The fawns 

 turned broadside as the mother stepped 

 ashore and in open-eyed amazement 

 gazed at the round ball of fire, which 

 had hitherto been so silent. Bang! went 

 the flash, and a great tongue of flame and 

 a column of white smoke ascended to the 

 top of the trees. 



Opening my left eye, which had been 

 purposely closed when the blinding flash 

 was fired, I saw the doe running up the 

 trail, while the fawns, directly facing the 

 dazzling flame, were temporarily blinded 

 and jumped about in great confusion; 

 one finally struggled up the shore in col- 

 lision with brush and projecting logs, 

 while the other jumped into the water 

 and headed directly for the canoe, dimly 

 seeing a lighted way in front of the jack 

 when all else about was dark and im- 

 penetrable. As it passed by I seized it 

 gently by the slender neck, whereupon 

 the guide, who had a long standing order 

 for a young deer, asked me to pull it 

 aboard ; but the thought of a capsize, 

 with the loss of a negative more valuable 

 to me than the prize money in sight for 

 the guide, and the thought, too, of sep- 

 arating forever these frolicksome twins, 

 le ^e to turn the swimmer ashore. And 

 whc- we returned an hour later, the ab- 

 sence of bleating cries showed the family 

 reunited, but doubtless still in a state of 

 wonder at a whirtling moon which had 



blown up in such an unexpected and ter- 



rifying manner. 



HOW PORCUPINES TOOK THE:iR OWN 



picture:s 



Having in a previous issue described 

 the habits and range of the porcupine,''' 

 reference now will be confined to the 

 manner in which the accompanying pic- 

 tures were taken (1912), with a few ad- 

 ditional observations upon the alleged in- 

 stinct of the animal in never completely 

 girdling the base of the tree when feed- 

 ing on the lower bark. 



Where porcupines are abundant they 

 are easy animals to photograph. On 

 five occasions I even got their pictures at 

 night on the same plate with deer. But 

 any effort to coax such a stolid, tree- 

 inhabiting rodent to take its own picture 

 by flashlight, and at a spot where the 

 camera must be placed more or less at 

 random, presented something of a prob- 

 lem. Subsisting almost exclusively upon 

 the bark, twigs, and leaves of certain 

 trees, including particularly, in the fall, 

 the needles of coniferous ones, like the 

 hemlock, this animal is not often found 

 seeking ground food except in the sum- 

 mer, when it visits ponds and lakes for 

 aquatic plants. Consequently months 

 might pass without a picture if the bait 

 used consisted of the common form of 

 vegetation found throughout its range. 

 Like most rodents, how^ever, the porcu- 

 pine enjoys gnawing the bones or shed 

 antlers of wild animals, and also has a 

 keen relish for any substance impreg- 

 nated with salt. Therefore it seemed to 

 me there could be found no greater at- 

 traction than a salted bone. The two big 

 ''porkies" — one unusually light-colored, 

 the other unusually dark, with a bone 

 between their uplifted paws, tell the story 

 of the effort (see pages 774 and 775). 



Having heretofore only casually no- 

 ticed the manner in which trees were 

 barked by porcupines, I had reached no 

 definite conclusion thereon ; so when last 

 fall, while looking for a good place to 



* See "A Flashlight Story of an Albino 

 Porcupine and of a Cunning but Unfortunate 

 Coon," NationaIv Geographic Magazine, June, 

 1911. 



