LITTLE FOLKS THAT GNAW 209 



pine is decreasing in our Eastern woods. It has 

 been several years since one was reported in our 

 county, for example. We still have plentiful for- 

 ests for them to feed in (they laboriously climb 

 trees and eat the bark, twigs, and even foliage), 

 though our supply of long hollow logs to nest in may 

 be fewer. Yet the 'coons and wildcats continue to 

 flourish, and they are much more hunted than the 

 porcupine ever was. 



In the wilder parts of the country, however — in 

 the Michigan woods, for example, or the Rocky 

 Mountains — they are still numerous, and woe to the 

 campers who leave an ax-handle or saddle-girth un- 

 protected at night! Once, in Montana, we lost an 

 ax-handle, a halter rope, and the sleeve of a woolen 

 sweater, in a single night. I was waked the next 

 morning by the sound made by the cook in killing 

 the porcupine with what was left of the ax. These 

 beasts will gnaw anything made the least saline by 

 contact with perspiration. A Michigan lumberman 

 told me that an approved method of revenge in his 

 neck of the woods was to sprinkle salt on the roof of 

 your enemy's cabin, if possible the night before a 

 rain! He said he had seen the porcupines eat an 

 entire roof so treated full of holes in one night, to 

 the great discomfort of the occupant of the cabin. 

 Having camped in porcupine-infested timber, I 

 can readily believe it. Probably nobody seriously 

 regrets the diminishing range of these rodents. 

 They appear to serve no useful purpose, as their 

 feeding is almost entirely destructive, even when it 

 is confined to trees and shrubs. 



A correspondent in Manchester, Vermont, how- 



