200 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP. 
or plantigrade, like a bear, and the soles are naked, 
but along their sides and between the toes grows 
a thick fringe of long coarse hair, which acts like 
snow-shoes in sustaining the animal’s weight on the 
snow, in which its low-hung body leaves a deep rut 
as it tramps along. The hemlock, sugar-maple, 
basswood, ash, and slippery elm in the East, and 
in the West the cottonwood, are its favorites, these 
having a thick, juicy underbark. Its depredations 
occasionally kill trees, especially its habit of girdling 
them, but the total of damage in this way is tri- 
fling. Sometimes, in winter, it invades the orchard 
and gnaws the bark from young orchard trees or 
despoils a nursery, but the harm thus done is 
never very great. 
In summer the porcupine wanders more widely 
and enjoys a more varied fare, eating young leaves 
and buds of shrubs, herbage, and many roots and 
vegetables. Dr. Merriam mentions their fond- 
ness for lily-pads in the Adirondacks and tells us 
that they sometimes quarrel for possession of a 
stranded log by which these dainties may be 
reached, snarling, growling, and pushing one an- 
other away or even into the water, but not biting, 
although their great front teeth might inflict seri- 
ous wounds. In the fall, mast, and especially 
beechnuts, forms a staple article of diet, as with 
other large rodents. He is fond of apples, Indian 
corn, etc., which he eats sitting up on his haunches, 
holding the morsel up to his mouth like a squirrel. 
