A FLASHLIGHT STORY OF AN ALBINO POR- 

 CUPINE AND OF A CUNNING BUT 

 UNFORTUNATE COON 



By George Shiras, 3rd 



Author of " Photographing Wild Game with Flashlight and Camera," 

 with 72 Illustrations, in The National Geographic Magazine, 

 July, 1906, and "One Season's Game Bag with the 

 Camera," with 70 Illustrations, in The National 

 Geographic Magazine, June, 190S 



WHEN one goes into the wilder- 

 ness, whether in the destruc- 

 tive pursuit or in the quiet 

 study of animal life, the greater the 

 experience the more certain is the con- 

 clusion that only on rare occasions is it 

 possible to become acquainted with the 

 habits, the appearance, or the special 

 characteristics of any individual member 

 of a species. 



In some 40 years' familiarity with the 

 white-tail deer, a portion, at least, of 

 each season spent in the same locality, 

 and more often than not, watching them 

 feed, night after night, in front of the 

 jack-light, I have never in all such time 

 felt certain of having recognized any of 

 these animals on a succeeding season. 



A magnificent stag, which could be re- 

 peatedly identified during one season by 

 the shape of the antlers, was shorn in 

 the winter time of these emblems of his 

 sex, and the new horn-growth of the 

 following season was, presumably, quite 

 dissimilar in size and shape. 



A doe accompanied by peculiarly 

 marked, spotted fauns could be easily 

 recognized in the same general locality, 

 when feeding on aquatic plants or when 

 splashing in the water to escape the in- 

 sect pests ; yet, if in the fall or winter 

 this little family escaped the hunters or 

 the timber wolves, who would know the 

 mother the next summer with her new 

 and differently marked young, or the 

 separated yearlings, in their unspotted 

 coats? With the moose, elk, caribou, 

 and bear it was the same, and the excep- 



tions, in the writer's case, relate largely 

 to the smaller varieties of quadrupeds. 



The examples taken in the present 

 article are the porcupine and the rac- 

 coon, which, by reason of one species 

 occupying nearly all the country from 

 our northern States to the tree-limit in 

 the Arctic circle, and the other from 

 lower Canada to the Gulf of Mexico, 

 are ones that we are either personally 

 familiar with or ought to be willing to 

 acquire information about. 



The porcupine is a rodent of the 

 North — the denizen of the dark-green 

 coniferous forest — where half the year 

 the snow lies deep and the animal slum- 

 bers in a winter torpor far within the 

 cavernous rocks or hollow logs, pro- 

 tected from the biting cold by drifting 

 snows that conceal all evidence of the 

 animal's retreat. 



During the winter thaws, and more 

 often in the early spring, the deep, wide 

 furrows of this clumsy animal may be 

 seen criss-crossing the surface of the re- 

 ceding snow as he seeks to break his 

 long fast on the tender bark of the pine 

 sapling, the swelling buds of the sugar 

 maple, or by climbing to the uttermost 

 limb of a spreading elm, where he is 

 able to seize in his stubby paws the half- 

 open leaves of his favorite tree. 



Generally this animal, though of the 

 coldest climes, is quite susceptible to 

 sudden changes of temperature, and even 

 in midsummer, if the wind is northerly, 

 or the air damp and penetrating with the 

 drizzling rains of such a latitude, one 



