I have a great deal of respect for the porcupine, and I have noticed that 
his fellow animals have a like feeling toward him. In the first place, he 
doesn’t meddle with the affairs of others and he very quickly resents any 
attempt to meddle with his affairs. He rarely hunts for a fight and he never 
runs away from one. In all of the animal kingdom I do not believe there is 
a more fearless creature. 
Conscious of his own powers of defense he seems to have a contempt 
for other animals. In Africa and India tigers and leopards attack him and 
often kill him, but only after a hard fight, in which they receive many 
wounds, which sometimes prove fatal, from his long spines, called quills. In 
Western America I have known a mountain lion (puma) to» die of wounds 
received in a fight with a porcupine. The wounds suppurated, causing 
blood-poisoning, resulting in death. The other animals know that the por¬ 
cupine is not afraid of them and that he is always ready to fight—hence they 
respect him and usually leave him alone. 
The porcupine has long been rendered famous among men by the extra¬ 
ordinary armory of pointed spears which it bears upon its back, and which 
it was formerly fabled to launch at its foes with fatal precision. This remark¬ 
able power of the rugged little creature has been thoroughly exploited and is 
attributable to a real fact, of which few writers take cognizance. When 
attacked the porcupine prepares for defense by rolling itself into a ball, 
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