192 WILD NEIGHBORS chap. 



friend reached forward for it. He had not fairly 

 touched it before he leaped back with a howl of 

 surprise and pain, and held up a hand stuck as full 

 as a pin-cushion with glistening spines, which the 

 beast had planted with a lightning-like flirt of its 

 tail. I thought I heard the old codger chuckle in 

 unison with my laughing sympathy as I pulled the 

 prickles out of the smarting hand, but it lay still 

 and kept its tender nose well out of the reach of a 

 club. We had no wish to kill it, however, but 

 wanted to learn more of the creature's skill with 

 the broadsword, and taking a stick, gently touched 

 the tail again. It responded by a sideways jerk of 

 surprising quickness and force, knocking the stick 

 aside and dropping a few quills ; but it did not 

 hurl its whole body, as Audubon describes ; nor 

 did the caudal spines themselves rattle loudly, as 

 the longer ones of the European species do. 



A brief quotation from Darwin's book on " Ex- 

 pression" will describe this peculiarity of the Old 

 World porcupine to the best advantage : 



" Porcupines rattle their quills and vibrate their 

 tails when angered ; and one behaved in this man- 

 ner when a live snake was placed in the compart- 

 ment. The quills on the tail are very different 

 from those on the body ; they are short, hollow, 

 thin like a goose-quill, with their ends transversely 

 truncated, so that they are open ; they are sup- 

 ported on long, thin, elastic foot-stalks. Now 

 when the tail is rapidly shaken, these hollow quills 



