THE CANADIAN PORCUPINE. 145 
an opening which would appear at first sight to be hardly large enough to 
permit the passage of an animal of only half its size. 
The total length of the common Porcupine is about three feet six inches, 
the tail being about six inches long. Its gait is plantigrade, slow, and clumsy, 
and as it walks, its long quills shake and rattle in a very curious manner. 
Its muzzle is thick and heavy, and its eyes small and pig-like. 
THE URSON, CaWQUAW, or CANADIAN PORCUPINE, is a native of North 
America, where it is most destructive to the trees among which it lives. 
Its chief food consists of living bark, which it strips from the branches as 
cleanly as if it had been furnished with a sharp knife. When it begins to 
feed, it ascends the tree, com- — 
mences at the highest branches, 
and eats its way regularly down- 
ward. Having finished one tree, 
it takes to another, and then 
to athird, always choosing those 
that run in the sare line; so 
that its path through the woods 
may easily be traced by the line 
of barked and dying trees which 
it leaves in its track. A single 
Urson has been known to de- 
stroy a hundred trees in a single 
winter, and another is recorded 
as having killed some two or 
three acres of timber. 
The Urson is not so fully 
defended with spines as the 
preceding animal, but is covered 
with long, coarse, blackish brown 
hair, among which the short 
pointed quills are so deeply set, 
that, except in the head, tail, 
and hinder quarters, they are 
scarcely perceptible. These 
spines are dyed of various 
colours by the American In- 
dians, and are then used in the 
decoration of their hunting- 
pouches, mocassins, and other 
articles, and after the quills are 
extracted, the remainder of the 
fur is sufficiently soft to be used 
for clothing. The flesh .of the 
Urson is considered eatable, 
and is said to bear some re- 
semblance to flabby pork. 
The length of the Urson is 
not quite four feet, the head 
and body measuring rather more 
than three feet, and the tail 
about nine inches. The teeth are of a bright orange. 
THE AGOUTI is a native of Brazil, Paraguay, Guiana, and other neigh- 
bouring countries, but its numbers have been considerably thinned in many 
spots where cultivation has been industriously carried on. In some of the 
L 
CANADIAN PORCUPINE OR URSON. 
Lrethizon dorsdtum. 
