XV BRUSH-TAILED PORCUPINE 501 



least promulgating, this legend, which has even grown so in the 

 telling that the quills are said to be capable of penetrating planks 

 of wood. AVhat Buffon said apropos of this matter is, " The 

 marvellous commonly is pleasingly believed, and increases in 

 proportion to the number of hands it passes through." It is of 

 course the rattling of the spines and the occasional falling out of 

 loose ones which has started the legend. They are, however, 

 excellent weapons of offence, and the animal charges somewhat 

 backwards to make the best use of them against the foe. The 

 spines, however, are by no means an absolute protection, since, as 

 Mr. Pddley informs us,^ Tigers will kill and eat these animals just 

 as the Thylacine is apparently indifferent to the spiny armature 

 of Echidna. 



Of the Brush-tail Porcupine, Atherura^ there are at any rate 

 two species, the West African A. africana and the Malayan A. 

 fasciculata. It is interesting that the gap in the present distribu- 

 tion is partially filled by the discovery of fossil teeth near Madras. 

 The genus does not differ widely in external appearance from 

 Hystrix ; it has, however, a rather longer tail ; there are fewer 

 large spines, and there is a tuft of them at the end of the tail, 

 whence is derived the name of the genus. The frontal bones 

 project- a little distance between the nasals, a feature which does 

 not seem to appear in the true Porcupines. There are fourteen 

 dorsal vertebrae and five lumbars. The twenty-four caudal verte- 

 brae of this Porcupine shows how much longer is its tail than 

 that of Hystrix ; for in the latter twelve is about the number. 



A third genus of Old-AVorld Porcupine is the singular Tricliys? 

 Of this there is but one species, T. li-pura. It is a curious fact 

 that out of three examples, all from Borneo, two were quite 

 without a tail. But this appears to be merely a mutilation, 

 though it is singular that the natives state it to Ije without a 

 tail. One cannot help thinking of the way in which lizards 

 sometimes shed their tails when pecked at. The tail of this 

 genus is more than half the length of the body and head. Tricliys 

 has sixteen dorsal and six lumbar vertebrae. There is a tuft of 

 quills at the end of the tail, which are thin and compressed, 



' Nat. Science, vi. 1895, p. 94. 

 ^ See Parsons. Proc. Zool. Soc. 1894, p. 67.o. 



' Giinther, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1876, p. 739, and 1889, p. 75 ; and Cederblom, Zool. 

 Jahrb. Syst. AUh. xi. 1897-98, p. 497. 



