502 
THE SAVAGE WORLD. 
covered with quills, some slender and flexible, others shorter, stouter and very 
sharp. There are a few on the tip of the tail. The prevailing color is brownish- 
black, with a white band on the fore part of the neck. This is the pore epic 
of the French, the spiny pig, so-called from its heavy, pig-like look and its 
grunting voice. It lives in rocky crevices or in burrows, becoming torpid in 
winter; the food consists of various vegetable substances, and its flesh is well 
flavored. It can erect its quills at pleasure, but cannot discharge them. Be¬ 
sides its grunts it makes a rattling noise by shaking the tuft of hollow quills 
on its tail; when angered it also strikes the ground with its feet. 
The Nepaul Porcupine ( Hystrix hodgsoni ) has no crest, and is covered 
chiefly with spiny bristles with long, hair-like points, and the quills are rather 
black than white. It is very abundant in the sub-Himalayan region, and very 
mischievous, digging up potatoes and other root crops. It is monogamous and 
has two young at a birth. Its flesh is very delicate and is eaten by all classes, 
even by the high caste Hindoos. It is easily tamed, and breeds in captivity, 
and it is considered lucky to have 
a family of them about the stables. 
The Brush-tail, or Fasciculated 
Porcupine {Atherurus fasciculatus ), 
sometimes called the Malacca porcu¬ 
pine ■, is found in the Celebes Islands, 
and the Isles of the Indian Archi¬ 
pelago. The most peculiar thing 
about it is its tail. The body is 
nearly covered with spines, mostly 
white at the base and black toward 
the extremity, pointing backward 
upon all ordinary occasions; the be¬ 
ginning of the tail is also decorated 
with spines, then comes a portion 
thereof which is bare even of hairs, 
and the tail ends in a tuft or bundle 
of long flat bristles, bearing a close resemblance to narrow slips of parchment, 
slit in an irregular manner. This tuft is nearly white and about two inches 
long. The entire tail is about five inches, the body a little more than a foot 
long. The eyes are small and black, the ears short, round and naked. It 
sleeps all day, is cross and fretful, and when irritated or disturbed stamps with 
rage, erects its spines, and swells itself to its utmost size. Its intelligence is 
very limited. 
The Yellow-haired, or Prairie Porcupine ( Erethizon epixanthus) , is smaller 
than the preceding; the color is blackish-brown, the long hairs of the body 
tipped with greenish-yellow; the anterior molar is considerably larger than the 
rest; it is found west of the Missouri to the Pacific Ocean. 
The Canada Porcupine (Erethizon dorsatus ) is about two and a half feet 
long, and weighs from twenty to thirty pounds. It appears larger than it 
really is from the length of the hair and spines; the fur is generally dark 
brown, soft, woolly, and grayish next the skin, coarse and bristly in some parts, 
six or seven inches long on the back, coarse hairs usually with dirty white 
points, giving to the whole a hoary tint; the spines, more or less hidden by 
AGOUTI. 
