vil A WOODLAND CODGER 193 
strike against each other and produce... a pe- 
culiar continuous sound. We can, I think, under- 
stand why porcupines have been thus provided, 
through the modification of their protective spines, 
with this special, sound-producing instrument. 
They are nocturnal animals, and if they scented 
or heard a prowling beast of prey, it would be a 
great advantage to them, in the dark, to give warn- ° 
ing to their enemy what they were and that they 
were furnished with dangerous spines.” 
One now sees how aptly the fellow is named 
“ porcupine,’ —a corruption of the Old French 
words porc espin, meaning “spiny pig.” This, in 
fact, seems to have been the original import of 
the Latin Aystrix,—the family name, derived 
from a Greek compound noun signifying “ hairy 
pig.” The Spanish, Portuguese, and Italians use 
substantially the same term, while the German 
nations have translated it into stachelschwein, 
stekel-vark, etc., meaning “stickle-hog.”’ The 
early English spellings and quaint variants, such 
as porcupig, forkentine, purpentine, and the like 
are innumerable. Buffon’s term, /’urson, was a 
rather fantastic figment, intended to indicate by 
the first syllable that it resembled a bear’s cub, 
and, by the second, to remind one that its home 
was about the bay of Hudson, for whom Buffon 
professed great admiration. 
The porcupine is a denizen of the woods and 
rarely leaves them for the farmers’ fields, while 
° 
