156 
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time. 
or porcupines. When they are at rest they lay their pens or pegs close 
to the body, but if they are vexed they can by contracting themselves 
cast them forth with such strength that they kill man or beast. In 
the winter they retire into holes where they remain without eating or 
drinking, they feed upon herbs and roots and cast their pens as other 
creatures do their hair.” ( Churchill's Voyages , vol. ii. p. 298.) 
Koger Ascbam, in his Toxophilus , 1515, tells ns that 
“ Claudiane the poete saith, that Nature gave example 
of shootynge first by the porpentine, which shootes his 
prickes and will hitte anye thinge that fightes with it.” 
Marlowe employs the porcupine as a simile in Tam- 
hurlaine , where the emperor complains that his sons are 
wanting in a martial appearance :— 
“ Their hair as white as milk and soft as down, 
Which should be like the quills of porcupines 
As black as jet and hard as iron or steel.” 
(2 Tamburlaine, i. 3.) 
This comparison may have been in Shakspeare’s mind 
when, in Hamlet , the ghost speaks of a tale of horror which 
could make— 
“ Each particular hair to stand on end, 
Like quills upon the fretfull porpentine.” 
(Hamlet , i. 5, 19.) 
A Portuguese writer, whose account of his residence 
in Brazil has been previously quoted, mentions 
the Agouti, an animal common in South 
America:— 
“ The acutis are like the conies of Spaine, chiefely in their teeth : the 
colour is dunne, and draweth toward yellow. They are domesticall 
creatures, so that they goe about the house, and goe out and come in 
againe to it. They take with their fore-feet all that they eate, and so 
they carrie it to the mouth, and they eate very fast, and hide that 
which they leave against they be an hung t ie. Of these there are 
many kindes, and all are eaten.” ( Purchas, vol. iv. p. 1301.) 
