202 
MAMMALIA. 
without weight, because it is very evident that these authors derive 
their knowledge from Davies, whose observations were limited to 
a single specimen taken near Quebec. Moreover, the fact that a 
hibernating animal does not emerge from winter-quarters till June 
in the latitude of Quebec, affords no reason for supposing it to 
remain dormant till this late date in more southern localities. 
Indeed, experience points to a contrary conclusion, as well in the 
present as in several other species. On the iith of February, 
1874, I caught an active male at Easthampton, Massachusetts; 
and Mr. Elisha Slade writes me that in the vicinity of his home, at 
Somerset, Bristol County, Mass., the animal “ retires to hollow 
trees, stumps, or fissures of rocks, during cold snaps,” and reap- 
pears with every return of warm weather. During the winter of 
1881-1882, unprecedented for its mildness, I several times ob- 
served it in Lewis County, in Northern New York. 
Family HYSTRICID^E. 
ERETHIZON DORSATUS (Linn.) F. Cuvier. 
Canada Porcupine. 
The Porcupine is a common and well-known resident of all the 
wooded parts of the Adirondacks, and is equally abundant in the 
lowlands and on the highest mountains. 
Of all the mammalian inhabitants of North America, not one 
possesses more striking peculiarities. To a person beholding him 
for the first time he seems a veritable prodigy. He presents a 
combination of positive characters which seem directly contradic- 
tory to his known habits of life. He is about twice the size of a 
full-grown woodchuck, well-conditioned adults averaging from fif- 
teen to twenty pounds in weight. His muzzle is short and blunt, 
and his eyes and ears are small — the latter almost concealed in the 
bristles of the sides of the head. His neck is short and thick, and 
his body is large and chunked. He is very compactly built, and 
