578 



THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



Photo by George Shiras, 3rd 



fourth summer: THIS flash SHOWS THE ALBINO MOTHER WITH her black 

 YOUNG ONE FEEDING BY HER SIDE: JULY 24, I904, 9 P. M. (SEE PAGE 59l) 



I remember going once in the early sum- 

 mer for the purpose of examining their 

 condition, and, on approaching the spot, 

 was greeted with a sound of grinding 

 and crunching not unlike a distant saw- 

 mill. Within the interior of a decked- 

 over ducking-skiff, brought the previous 

 year from the East, I found three large 

 porcupines putting the finishing touches 

 upon all the ribs and other projections 

 that could be scored by their flat, yellow 

 teeth. The boat was nearly a wreck, and 

 for a time I was puzzled, because such 

 a thing had never happened before. 



My guide, standing by, suggested the 

 solution by asking whether I had not 

 used this boat the previous season on 

 Long Island Sound, and although he had 

 never seen salt water, he knew just as 

 well as these animals what this meant. 



Every year thousands of porcupines 

 are killed by indignant hunters and lum- 



bermen, and not a few by tenderfeet and 

 young boys, whose first sight of this ap- 

 parently ferocious beast leads them to 

 believe it a work of heroism to shoot or 

 club to death the most stolid and least 

 aggressive animal of the American for- 

 est. 



At a time when the Indians were 

 numerous along the Great Lakes these 

 animals were not only used for food, 

 but the longer quills afforded the prin- 

 cipal means, when variously colored, of 

 ornamenting their moccasins, hunting- 

 shirts, birch-bark baskets, and the like, 

 but in recent years very few practical 

 uses are made of this animal, except in 

 Alaska, where the natives and transient 

 explorers still seem to regard it as a 

 toothsome article. 



Sometimes one hears a lumberman 

 complain of the extensive destruction of 

 growing timber by porcupines. My ob- 



