CLASS I. MAMMALIA: ORDER 7. RODENTIA. 
399 
very formidable appearance. They are not capable of being detached by the animal. The tail- 
quills are, as it were, cut off in the middle, and are consequently open at the ends, and produce a 
loud rustling noise when the animal agitates its tail. 
The Porcupine is a nocturnal animal, sleeping in the burrow which it digs, and to which there 
are several openings, during the day, and coming forth at nightfall to seek its food, consisting 
principally of roots, fruits, and tender leaves. Its usual food near the Cape, where it is called 
Yzer- Varken, is the root of that beautiful plant, the Calla ^thiopica, Avhich grows even in the 
ditches about the gardens; but it will frequently deign to put up with cabbages and other vege- 
tables, and sometimes commits great depredations in the gardens themselves. It undergoes a 
partial hibernation, but its sleep is not of long duration, for it ventures abroad again at the very 
commencement of spring. The young are produced in August, and have very small spines. 
The ancients were acquainted with the Porcupine, and Aristotle alludes to the story of its 
power in shooting its quills to a distance at its enemy, showing that this illusion had thus early 
taken possession of the popular mind. The tale is dwelt upon by Pliny with his usual love of 
the marvelous, and ^lian, Oppian, and Claudian have repeated the story with exaggerations. In 
suddenly raising his spiny armor, a loose quill may be detached by the Porcupine, but the power 
of ejaculation to a distance does not exist. 
The use of the quills is simply that of a defensive armor, but as this seems a cumbrous device 
for such a purpose, we are led to insist on finding other advantages to be derived from them. 
Hence, Thunberg tells us that he w-as informed that the Ceylonese Porcupine had "a very curious 
method of fetching water for its young, namely, the quills in the tail are said to be hollow, and 
to have a hole at the extremity, and that the animal can bend them in such a manner as that they 
can be filled with water, which afterward is discharged in the nest among the young." Such 
inventions, to help nature out, so as to satisfy a narrow conception of her works, are doubtless the 
source of many of the common-place errors in respect to animals of peculiar organization; but the 
truth certainly is, that the Porcupine finds his quill armor an exceedingly convenient, useful, and 
effective defense, and he would be as imperfect without it as a wasp without its sting, or a cock 
without his spurs. The Porcupine is an exceedingly stupid creature, and hence, no doubt, nature 
supplied him with his formidable covering as a compensation for his lack of brains; as an indis- 
pensable provision in order to put him on a level with other brutes of his order. The mode by 
which nature equalizes her favors are infinitely diversified: some animals she endows with in- 
stincts, some with gifts analogous to reason, some with strength, some with dexterity, some with 
defensive or offensive weapons. The hare has speed, the squirrel activity, the marmot caution, 
the beaver ingenuity, the rat most or all of these qualities; the Porcupine, destitute of all, has 
his quiver of arrows, which he shakes in the face of his foe, to frighten him if he is a coward, 
and to pierce him if he has the courage to make an attack. In case of need, he will run back- 
ward at his enemy, and thus strike his sharp-pointed arrows into him. Without his quills, the 
Porcupine would seem to be a singularly unmeaning, uncouth, and helpless sot; with them, he 
has a position in history, and figures in literature as the emblem of human fretfulness and conceit. 
The geographical distribution of the common Porcupine appears to be extensive. It is found 
wild in Italy, and is sometimes brought into the markets of Rome, where it is eaten, though its 
flesh is not highly esteemed; it is very rare in all the rest of Europe. It inhabits India, the sand 
hills along the southwestern shores of the Caspian Sea, Southern Tartary, Persia, Palestine, and 
the greater part of Africa. 
The other species of this genus are the White-tailed Porcupine, H. leucurus, the Sayal of 
the Mahrattas, described by Colonel Sykes, and the H. Hodgsoni, or Crestless Fepaul Porcu- 
pine. 
Genus ACANTHIONt Acanthion. — Of this there are two species, very imperfectly known: the 
A. Javanicum, found in Java, and resembling the H. cristata, but somewhat larger, and the A. 
Baubentonii, probably a native of Africa, also resembling the H. cristata, but even larger than 
the A. Jawanicum. 
Genus ATHERURE: Atherurus. — Of this genus there are two known species, the most noted 
of which is the Fasciculated Porcupine, A, fasciculatus, the Malacca Porcupine of Buffon. 
