The Denison review. [volume] (Denison, Iowa) 1867-current, 1903-06-10
HUNGRY, HAPPY poRcUp1NEs.
Their Habit of Eating Piers, Hotel
Porches and Oars Has Made
Them Disliked.

The happiest inhabitant of the North
woods in the warm spring days is the
porcupine. Other beasts and birds
have cares; the porcupine has none.
They have to search for food; the por-
cupine eats what it finds and when it
finds nothing eats, wood and bark.
1t is reasonably happy at all seasons,
but superlatively SO just now, for all
day it sits upon the limb of some great
hemlock or birch and swings slowly in
the sun, sound asleep and holding on
by instinct. The pleasing rays come
down through its quilts and make it
comfortable all through, says the New
York Sun.
A man in walk of a mile may see
half a dozen RyeTSSsaAIpines and every one
OF them will b.high up, .roosting Sc
curely and utterly blissful. If the
porcupine knew how, it would repeat
the Whiteomb Riley spring poem about
"Lazyin' around as dern please When
tn green, you know, gifts up in thu
trees" but it does better than repeat
it, it acts it.
The porcupine is in no danger from
predatory animals except when on the
ground, and it is in very little danger
then. IT foeman appears it merely
rolls itself into ball exposing it's i'm
pregnable armor of quilts, and lies still
until the encroacher has investigated
and gone away with its nose full of
stickers.
There is no wild animal that can get
the better of porcupine Like Young
Critic, the whilom pugilist, it can't
hurt anything, but it has the entire
science of self-defencs in the knot of
its scarf and a thousand drawn bat
ties to it's credit.
The only animal which Stays the por
cupine relentlessly and frequently is
man. Some of the western states have
laws perpetually protecting the porcu
pine on the theory that it is the only
| flesh which man unarmed and lost
in the woods can capture with club
and eat, but nobody in the porcupinc
districts pays any attention to these
| laws.
Porcupines are killed when oppor-
tunlty offers, because they are very
destructive. They do most of their
feeding at night and they cost the
woods jewellers money.
A porcupine will visit small nier a.
the edge of lake, and in the MORNING
some of the dock will be inside of the
porcupine and much of it will be in
spllnters. In one night a porcupine
Will eat half of the blade of an oar and
then tackle the gunwale of the boat.
marrlng 1T seriously, if not running 1t
There are many little hotels scatter
ed through the north woods, intended
Tor the entertainment of fishermen
and hunters. and the porches of these
hotels all bear evidences of the porcu-
pines teeth. If there be grease SPOT
on the planking that is the spot the
porcupine will gnaw and it will pnaw
long after the grease has disappear
gnaw until there is hole clear
through.
1t is supposed that it eats oars.
piers, boat edges, porches and such
things for the slight traces of salttbat
there may be on them from human
handling but this is only theory. It
is quite as likely that the porcupine
eats them because they arc accessible
and it feels that it must eat sometime
1t is frequently necessary to renew
small piers in out Of the way lakes be-
cause OF this habit and, therefore. the
hotelkeepers and guides, who would
much rather be drawing money from
guests than building piers or boats,
shoot the porcupine cruelty. They
even make sport of it, finding them
swaying with the wind in trees and
knocking them out with high-power
rifles.
Despite the efforts of humanity, how
ever, the porcupines increase. The
north woods cover . tremendous