48 
SINGULAR PET. 
between huge boulders. Each, at different points 
in the chase, gave him a wound. At last a shot, 
it is not remembered from whose gun, proved 
fatal ; and with a cry, not unlike a human being 
in mortal agony, he died. 
When first seen by them, he was descending a* 
tree, upon whose twigs and bark he had been 
feeding. 
Permit me here to dispel some popular illu- 
sions regarding this curious and interesting 
animal. 
Some time before the Centennial, Mrs. Maxwell 
bought a live one of an enterprising boy in Boul T 
der, and kept it six months or more, in order to 
study its tastes and habits. 
Instead of a repulsive, fiery creature, ready to 
throw a shower of stinging spines at anything 
which might come near it, she found it a most 
affectionate ancT intelligent being — really quite 
companionable ! 
Her pet rejoiced in the name of Yockco, a 
fact he was not long in discovering and to 
which he was seldom indifferent, being nearly 
always ready to respond when it was spoken. 
With the rest of his family — the rodents— he 
resembled in his tastes and many of his habits a 
mammoth, clumsy squirrel. He would run all 
about the house, climbing up on the chairs 
and tables and all kinds of furniture, careful 
