HABITS OF THE PORCUPINE. 
49 
said to be particularly fond of the boxwood shrub. 
He is shagged all over with hard and sharp hairs, of 
unequal length, from two or three to twelve inches or 
more. These are about the thickness of stalks of 
corn, with intermixtures of black and white ; they 
swell towards the middle, and terminate in a point. 
We are told, that when the porcupine is attacked 
he presents his side to the enemy, erects all his darts 
with a menacing air, and sometimes plunges them so 
deeply into the flesh of the creature by whom he is 
assaulted, that several of them remain in the wounds, 
and are detached from his body when he retires. 
The sockets of these are afterwards filled by others, 
which are enlarged by time. The power which tra- 
vellers have said the porcupine possesses, of darting 
his quills to a distance, is an error, which probably 
originated from his ability to erect and move them 
when irritated, and from some of them being but 
loosely attached to the skin, and therefore sometimes 
falling to the ground. It was probably some of these 
loose quills that were found by Ellis, at Hudson’s 
Bay, sticking in the mouth of a dead wolf, which was 
far more likely to be the consequence of the wolfs 
voraciousness than of the porcupine’s resentment. 
These animals are hunted by the Americans, 
from whom we learn, that they seldom live longer 
than fifteen years ; that the female goes with young 
seven months, and only brings forth one at a time ; 
that she suckles it about a month, and accustoms it 
betimes to live, like herself, upon vegetables and the 
bark of trees; that while under her protection she 
is very fierce in its defence, but at other times fearful. 
F 
