COMMON PORCUPINE. S 



extremely large and strong : the fore feet have 

 four toes; the hind feet five; all armed with 

 strong crooked claws : the tail is covered with 

 short and rather flattish quills, which are often 

 abrupt or truncated^ rather than pointed at the 

 extremities. This animal is a native of Africa, 

 India^ and the Indian islands : it is also found in 

 some of the warmer parts of Europe, and is 

 said to be not very uncommon in Italy and Sicily ; 

 but is supposed to have been originally im- 

 ported into those parts of Europe from other re- 

 gions. Mr. Brydone, in his tour through Sicily, 

 informs us, that in the district about Baise the 

 Porcupine is frequently seen ; and that in a shoot- 

 ing party on the Monte Barbaro he and his com- 

 panions killed several, but that the novelty of the 

 amusement was its chief merit, and that he would 

 not at any time give " a day's partridge for a 

 month porcupine-shooting." He adds, that the 

 party dined on porcupine that day, but that it is 

 extremely luscipus, and soon palls upon the ap- 

 petite." 



The power of darting its quills with great vio- 

 lence, and to a considerable distance, so confi- 

 dently ascribed to the Porcupine by the writers 

 of antiquity, as well as by some of the moderns, 

 seems now pretty generally exploded : it perhaps 

 originated from an accidental circumstance ; and 

 it is surely not improbable that the Porcupine 

 possessing, like other quadrupeds, the power of 

 corrugating or shaking the general skin of it$ 

 body, may sometimes by this motion cast off a 



