FLASHLIGHT STORY OF PORCUPINE AND COON 



579 



Photo by George Sliiras, 3rd 

 PERHAPS THE BEST FXASH TAKEN DURING THE SIN YEARS: JULY 25, 1904. 8.20 P. M. 



servation on that point suggests that it 

 depends largely upon the abundance and 

 variety of the food. Along the south 

 shore of Lake Superior, during a period 

 of nearly forty years I never saw any 

 particular evidence of such destruction. 

 Though many elms were pruned year 

 after year of their terminal limbs, so that 

 such trees grew long and straight like a 

 poplar, and sometimes sugar maples were 

 partly girdled at the base, yet apparently 

 by some provision of instinct there was 

 usually enough bark left to prevent the 

 tree from dying. Again, I have seen a 

 few young pines more or less injured 

 and occasionally destroyed by this ani- 

 mal. But so scattered and inconsequent 

 were these injuries that they attracted 

 little attention. 



However, in this region the forest is 

 composed of a great variety of mixed 

 timber, besides second growth and shrub- 

 bery. On the northwest end of Lake 

 Superior, in Minnesota particularly, 1 

 saw much evidence of injury to the 

 young pines. From the canoe I could 

 often notice the white trunks and limbs 

 of trees that had been recently denuded 

 of their bark, and sometimes as many as 

 fifteen or twenty in a group were de- 

 stroyed. On the higher ranges of the 

 Rocky Mountains I also saw many trees 

 that had been killed by porcupines ; but 

 in both these localities the trees were 

 practically all coniferous and there was 

 a marked absence of the hard and soft 

 wood timber found along the south shore 

 of Lake Superior. 



