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American Ornithology. Alexander 
Wilson 2.3) Vole, ¥ilext; — | avol 
plates. A very rare and much 
sought for work. Out of print.. .$150.00 

General Synopsis of Birds. John 
Latham. Very rare. 5 Vols.... 50.00 
Sportsman Vade Mecum. By Dinks. 
Edited by Frank Forester....... 10.00 
Frank Forester’s Fish and Fishing 
of United States and British 
Provinces: soir ner, ses oye eaten 15.00 
Life and Adventures of Col. David 
Crockett) Very rare. iiecse = 25.00 
King Edward as a Sportsman. Rare 
BndvOUb-OLs Print ae. ayea) evar eeneinels 's 50.09 
Animal Portraiture. Lydekker.... 25.00 
Compleat Angler. Isaac Walton... 15.00 
Sportsman’s Encyclopedia. Out of 
print. 4° Vols. Very rare...... 50.00 
Camera Trails In Africa. Johnson.. 4.00 
In Brightest Africa. Akeley....... 5.00 
Pearls and Savages. Hurley...... 7.50 
Fishing With the Fly. Orvis and 
Cheney © cee yn. 2 crtione tao iee Ke 10.00 
Way of a Trout With a Fly. Skues 7.50 
Salmon and Trout Angling. Adams 6.00 
Birds I Have Known. Laimbeer... 4.00 
How to Know the Wild Flowers. 
Dana oy toeeeles bys ee iene s “ste 3.00 
Handbook of Birds of Eastern North 
America.) Chapman?tias yee => 4.00 
Fox Hound of the Twentieth Cen- 
tury. | bradley... «te aeteieeor: «hs 10.00 
Complete Wild Fowler. Duncan & 
AD fobeel- pase: ae eee a5 aS c Eaiche we 3.75 
Story of Boxing. Wignall........ 6.00 
Across the Great Craterland to the 
Congo..y Batns:. &. Ronee «. aicle 7.50 
Sporting Rifles and Rifle Shooting. 
Caswell” (34). ..0)stte teenie ous eet 4.00 
Vikings of the Ice. England...... 4.00 
Golf Fundamentals. Dunn........ 8.00 
Picture Analysis of Golf Stroke. 
Barnes oy sic: 0) steele see Meteors Ses oie 6.50 
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In writing to Advertisers mention Forest and Stream. 




In Defense of “Porky” 
DEAR FOREST AND STREAM: 
[\ some places the porcupine is pro- 
tected, as an emergency ration, for 
poor wandering Willie lost in the 
woods, but here in Nova Scotia alas, 
there is a price on his prickly pate, as 
though our wild life was increasing 
so distressingly under the present 
regime, that we should legislate for its 
extinction. 
If consideration of our forests is 
the objective, then by all means let us 
have a closed season and bounty both 
on our criminally careless smoker and 
camper, as he destroys more valuable 
timber in one short distressful season 
than poor porky would in a thousand 
years. Of course porky does harm, 
the same as all the rest of us. I have 
seen a large tree that he had totally 
stripped from the forest floor to the 
remotest tips the size of knitting 
needles, the bark of this particular 
tree evidently just suiting porky’s 
epicurean palate. So he proceeded to 
turn out a most thorough and artistic 
job, his limit, the sky, thereby furnish- 
ing us at once, both an object lesson 
and a reproach for our wasteful 
methods of handling timber. Porky’s 
banquet board is usually set among 
our second growth hardwood, which in 
this, our banner climate and fertile 
soil, springs up in such a riot of rapid 
profusion that they stand as the tra- 
ditional quills on porky’s ‘own fret- 
ful back. (This. fall I measured a 
white maple shoot that had grown 
this year 5 feet 10 inches.) Seventy- 
five per cent of these must of necessity 
die, that the fittest may mature. Out 
of this seventy-five per cent porky takes 
one. Moreover the porcupine is an asset 
as a life saver, which one would 
scarcely credit to look at him, especially 
in his fretful mood. But to a man 
lost in the woods the sight of a porcu- 
pine spells a sure meal ticket for sev- 
eral palatable and sustaining feeds. 
Personally, I have never been lost in 
the woods badly enough for that, al- 
though I have eaten porcupine and to 
an absent-minded beggar his flesh is 
prime. Moreover the porcupine seems 
to be Nature’s only outward and vis- 
ible means of combating the ferocious 
and destructive wildcat, which seems 
absurd, but in the lean and hungry 
days when famishing carnivorous 
bobeat, whose larder is empty, meets 
up with fat and waddling herbivorous 
porky whose larder is always full, 
although puss’ knows better, but 
prompted by an insistant and sarcastic 
maw, he cautiously introduces an 
apprehensive paw under the menacing 
ball of barbed and bristling spears, 
deftly flirting porky over onto his 
spiny back, seizing him on his un- 
protected undenside. 
It will identify you. 



While poor porky is staying down 
for the count that frantically flailing 
tail is registering his indignant dis- 
approval. The cat’s desperate efforts 
to draw the quills only serve to work 
them in the faster. 
Eventually a quill, finding a vital 
spot, renders that particular neck of 
the woods catless, to the extent of one, 
or half a dozen, according to the de- 
nomination of the cat. So why not let 
one hand wash the other? Birds are 
of more value than bushes. No birds, 
no bushes, or anything else for that 
matter. 
Our childhood’s apprehensive belief 
that a porcupine could fire his quills 
right through you is absolutely true, 
although not exactly in the sense of 
a clothyard shaft from a yew bow, as 
we took it, yet suggestive enough to 
carry the legend down through the 
centuries. By a sudden jerk of his 
powerful tail I have seen him throw 
loose quills a good distance and if your 
flesh was close enough probably stick 
in and left serenely alone would surely 
go through you. 
My hunting companion on the Med- 
way this fall, while engaged in the ne- 
farious operation of skinning porky’s 
snout for the bounty, incidentally got 
a quill in his sleeve. That night in 
camp in spite of our most strenuous 
efforts it calmly and derisively walked 
in out of sight and is there yet. The 
man who brought me in from hunting 
this fall pulled a quill out of his leg 
that had gone clear through. 
We found a large rock den this fall 
that evidently harbored a numerous 
colony of porcupines last winter. About — 
15 yards from that, on the top of a 
large flat rock, was the stamping 
ground of wildcats, these two worthies 
having evidently put in a cheerful 
Page 346 
