WAYS OF NATURE 
I must come to close quarters with him.” But, 
of course, the stupid creature had no such mental 
process, and formed no such purpose. He had found 
the tree unsafe, and his instinct now was to get to the 
ground as quickly as possible and take refuge among 
the rocks. As he came down [ hit him a slight blow 
over the nose with a rotten stick, hoping only to con- 
fuse him a little, but much to my surprise and morti- 
fication he dropped to the ground and rolled down 
the hill dead, having succumbed to a blow that a 
woodchuck or a coon would hardly nave regarded 
at all. Thus does the easy, passive mode of defense 
of the porcupine not only dull his wits, but it makes 
frail and brittle the thread of his life. He has had no 
struggles or battles to harden and toughen him. 
That blunt nose of his is as tender as a baby’s, and 
he is snuffed out by a blow that would hardly bewil- 
der for a moment any other forest animal, unless 
it be the skunk, another sluggish non-combatant 
of our woodlands. Immunity from foes, from effort, 
from struggle is always purchased with a price. 
Certain of our natural history romancers have 
taken liberties with the porcupine in one respect: 
they have shown him made up into a ball and roll- 
ing down a hill. One writer makes him do this in 
a sportive mood; he rolls down a long hill in the 
woods, and at the bottom he is a ragged mass of 
leaves which his quills have impaled — an appari- 
tion that nearly frightened a rabbit out of its wits. 
244 
