4 



COMMON PORCUPINE. 



few of its loose quills to some distance, and thus 

 slightly wound any animal that may happen to 

 stand in its way ; and this may have given rise to 

 the popular idea of its darting them at pleasure 

 against its enemies. That it really does cast 

 them off occasionally with some degree of vio- 

 lence there is no reason to doubt*. ^' The 

 strongest and shortest of the quills (say the ana- 

 tomists of the French Academy) are most easily 

 detached^ and are those which the animals dart 

 against the hunters, by shaking their skin as dogs 

 do when they come out of the water. Claudian 

 accordingly remarks, that the Porcupine is him- 

 self the bow, the quiver, and the arrow, which he 

 employs against the hunters." The Count de 

 BulFon reproaches the gentlemen of the academy 

 with their credulity on this subject, and observes, 

 that they seem to have adopted the fable for no 

 other purpose than that of quoting Claudian ; 

 since, by their own account, it appears that the 

 Porcupine does not dart his quills to a distance, 



* " Upon the smallest irritation it raises its quills, and shakes 

 them with great violence, directing them to that quarter from 

 whence it is in danger of being attacked, and striking at the ob- 

 ject of its resentment with its quills at the same time. We have 

 observed, on an occasion of this sort, at a time when the animal 

 was moulting or casting its quills, that they would fly out to the 

 distance of a few yards, with such force as to bend the points of 

 them against the board where they struck ; and it is not improba- 

 ble that a circumstance of this kind may have given rise to an opi- 

 nion of its power to rise them in a more effectual manner." 



Bewick's Quadrupeds, ed. 2. p. 444. 



