The National tribune., 1902-09-04
KRAG-JoRGENSEN
Has range yards bullets per minute.

little animals with their axes, and it was
not until they had killed the whole drove,
80 in number, did they possess their shan
ty again in peace.
But the next night the place was at
tackled by another detachment as large as
1 the one that had come the night before.
The bark-peelers, anticipating second
visit, had closed up every aperture through
which the first lot of porcupines had got
into the shanty. But this did not deter
the second attacking party, which prompt
| ly set to work to gnaw a way to the in
terror. In a short time three different
entrances were made by the sharp-toothed
| and industrious beasts, and the two bark
peelers found themselves under the neces-
sity of either spending the night fighting
pOrcnpines again or surrendering the prem
ises to the determined invaders.
Before taking any decisive action the
bark-peelers sat down to see what the
purpose of the raiders was. The porcu-
pines paid no attention whatever to the
men, but scrambled to a corner of the
shanty where an empty pork barrel stood,
| a relic of some previous occupancy of the
premises. The animals attacked the bar
| rel and in less than an hour had eaten
off its salt-saturated slaves and hoops un-
| til there were but few rejected frag
ments left. Then they departed as quick
ly as they had come.
"YOu don't have to skirmish around
! much to get feed to fatten the hemlock-
belt porcupne. Just sprinkle salt a-plenty
| over stick of cOrdwO0d. or n sawlog,
and he'll eat the whole thing, and enjoy
it like you would mince-pie.
"The customary diet, though, of these
curious creatures is hemlock browse. They
make themselves home in n hollow log,
| or under the roots of some old tree but
always within reach of a big hemlock.
The hemlock is their pasture, and beaten
paths show how they make their trips
| to and from their homes and their feeding
places. The porcupine climbs a tree as
readily as a squirrel would, provided some
one doesn't sneak up and cut its tail off
while the animal is on its way up the tree.
| The porcupine's tail is most important
factor in the climbing, for the animal
uses it to propei itself upward, working
in unison with its sharp nails. Bereft
of its tail the pOrcupine cannot go farther
up the tree, and it will not come down
without it,. If anyone should catch q por-
cupine climbing tree and should chop
its tail off close, it will stop right where
it is and will stay there and starve to
death, unless some one takes the poor anil
| NAL away.
"Once up the tree, the porcupine goes
out on big limb, and, pulling the small
branches in with one paw, brOwses on the
pungent leaves. In going through the
| woods you will find little mounds Of these
| fine leaves on the ground beneath hemlock
trees. That means that porcupine is
| feeding in the tree, the leaves on the
ground being those that he has dropped in
| his feast. Sometimes porcupine will re-
main in hemlock tree a week at n time.
| hugging close to the trunk at night and
feeding during the day. The odd little
beast is the only living thing that eats
J the foliage of the hemlock.
while the hemlock belt porcupine is
entirely harmless. it is greatly dreaded
| by hunters and is Il great annoyance to
trappers. 1t seems to be an impossible
| ity to train out of any dog an Unborn
prediction for fighting this animal. The
best-.r .rained deerhound or bear dog will
| stop on the trail 10 have fight with a
porcupine, and, although the dog generally
succeeds in time in killing his game, it
| is always with more or less wear and tear
to himself. He is sure to have his mouth
and nose filled with the pOrcupine's sharp
quills during the fight. The pain they in
| flict maddens him and he pitches in fiercer
| than ever, only to receive another Quiver
| full of The keen little weapons the porcu-
pine carries all over his body.
MANY valuable hunting dog has been
| ruined by these quills, so many of the
poisonous shafts entering his mouth and
nose as to destroy his nose, if not injurine
him so that he has to be killed. So an
| important part of hunters equipment
| when going farther in the hemlock belt
woods is a pair of pincers, with which.
in case his dogs tackle porcupines, the
quills may be extracted at once. They
cannot be pulled out with ones fingers.
and many hunter, not having pincers
at hand, has been forced to extract por-
cupine quilts from his dogs nose with his
| teeth or lose his dog.
"Then the shopping little beasts nose
around the trapper's marten and other
traps, and although they pay with their
lives for their inquisitiveness, they are
worthless to the trapper, and spoil his
chances for game that is valuable"
Sister-What is the best way to retain
a mans love?
Brothsr-QQa't setuza it, Chicago