The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1900-02-03

I dulllSt ~ uOcS, ny Suuuel COnlIdCllOi
| of the skin, get rid of them with re
narkable ease. These quilts vary il
| length from an inch to six incAes. The
are as sharp as needles at the point, arr
| barbed like a fish-hook and have
tendency to work themselves in. The,
are attached by a very slight root and
unlike the sting of the bee, grow again
| with rapidity. The porcupine rolls it
| self into ball so that anything at
| tempting to bite it's body gets nose AM
mouth full of spines but its principa
weapon is the tail. This tail is thicklS
| set with the points and Is exceedingl.
flexible and active. When the misguid
ed dog or wolf has approached and pu
down it's head to get hold of the ball
the tail flies around with sharp SPA
and then there Is trouble. There is nj
more disheartening sight than highly
bred and conceited city dog which has
found porcupine fer the first time anc
personally conducted a tour of eXpsora.
ton. The agonized brute is powerles;
to rid itself of the piercing little darts
and the more it beats its face with its
phWs and rubs it's head upon the GROUND
the worse fix it is in. There is nothing
for it save for it's master to take it be-
tween his knees, held it firmly with one
hand and tear out the spines by main
force with the other. This makes
things interesting and the dog may be
heard by the curious listener three mile;
away 1t may live or it may die. Tbs
spines seem not to be pois that Is
to say they have no tangible poison
secreted in them, but they have great
power to set up an inflammation. If
the operation be performed before the
barbs have had time to enter deeply,
the dog may live, but he will not inves-
tigate any more porcupines under any
circumstances.
The lumbermen do not love the por-
cupine. 1t ruins hundreds of dollars
worth of fine timber each year and the
sum it has cost the state in the aggre-
gate is enormous. Its method of feed
ing is to select tree to its liking, gene
rally a Eastwood, birch or maple, and
Systematically go through it from the
topmost branch to the root, stripping 1T
of buds and bark as 1t descends. The
tree may get to be pretty tough eating
after awhile and there may be lots of
more tender ones around but the por-
cupine will do thorough job before de-
sorting it for another. The tree sub
jected to the treatment always dies and
there are places in the woods where half
acres of dead trunks standing about tell
where the small, but industrious, beast
has been at work. The ordinary food of
the porcupine is the inner bark of the
trunk and the tender buds which APP
pear on the ends of the limbs. 1t will
frequently cut off six inches of limb in
order to get the bud on the end Of it and
it will strip the outer bark in squares
two feet across in order to get at six
inches of the inner skin. This sort of
work, pursued in the early spring when
the sap is seeking to make its way
through all the veins and arteries of
the tree is peculiarly fatal. 1t has an
exactly similar effect to girding, which
Is practised by settlers when they wish
to kill lot of trees and make a clear
ing that they may farm for living and
go into debt.
But for this habit of. the porcupine,
and the further fact that lumbernlen
are not any more law-abiding than they
ought to be- the animals would increase
with such rapidty that they would own
all upper Wisconsin in ten years As it
s, an axeman going through the woods
n the early morning, making for the
scene of his days labor, will often step
)ut of his way for the satisfaction of
seeing a hedgehog roll itself into ball
and then bringing down his axe on 1t
With will; more hedgehogs are killed
n this way than in any other, though,
n the absence of other game fishermen
ind shooters from the city often make
marks of them, shooting them out of
he high trees more for practice than
'or anything else The porcupne will
average more than two feet in length
md will weigh between twenty and
hirty pounds, but it is not good tar
get for the reason that it is not more
han half as big as ii looks On it's
,ack the mixed spines and hairs will
un six to eight inches long and this
lives 1t a great apparent bulk. Andrew
Jackson was missed by his antagonist
n his most celebrated duel because he
vas a bony man and wore a coat much .
90 large for him, the ball scraping
long his ribs instead of going through
lin, as it would have done if he had
)een where he seemed to be. The por-
upine often escapes death in the same
way. At the crack of the rifle a bunch
f spines coarse, dirty hair and gray
ur springs out, but the animal, only
,razed,c reeps slowly into some hollow
ar up the trunk and lies there maybe
or a day, maybe for a year. No man
an say, because no man ever yet saw
ne of them come out where it had gone
n. Even taken at this disadvantage,
oweyer, fifty feet above the earth and
utlined clearly against the sky, the
GROUPINGS mistaken faith in the sure
Y of its armor sometimes manifests it.
elf Letting go all hold with its claws,
will drop straight to the ground, roll
lg into ball in midair, and when it
trikes fifty Of it's spines will dart in ev-
ry direction broken off by the fall.
occasionally men are wounded by these
pines either from careless handling or
rom stepping on them at night in
amp, where they have been dropped
Y little marauder. and testimony to
leir highly infammatory character is
trong. There are plenty of instances
{ wolves and wildcats being done to
cath by them.
The animal Is like tramp in that 1t
ates water, but 1t is often found on the
lges of small streams, plodding slowly
eng, with it's ugly head slowed to one
de, looking intently at the water
|