The name given this animal leads to a supposition that it is a hog covered with thorny quills,[AE] when, in fact, it only resembles that animal by its grunting; in every other respect it differs from the hog as much as any other animal, both in its outward appearance and inferior conformation. Instead of a long head and ears, armed with tusks, and terminated with a snout; instead of cloven feet, furnished with hoofs like the hog; the porcupine has a short head like the beaver, two large incisive teeth in each jaw, no tusks or canine teeth, the upper lip divided like that of the hare, the ears round and flat, and the feet armed with claws. Instead of a large stomach, with an appendix in form of a cowl, the porcupine has only a single stomach, with a large cæcum gut. The parts of generation are not apparent, as in the boar, and its testicles are concealed in the groin. By all these marks, together with its short tail, long whiskers, and divided lip it approaches more to the hare or beaver than to the hog. The hedge-hog, indeed, who, like the porcupine, is covered with prickles, somewhat resembles the hog, for it has a long muzzle, terminated by a kind of snout; but all these resemblances being so very slight it is clear that the porcupine ([fig. 162.]) is a particular and different species from the hedge-hog, the beaver, the hare, or any other animal whatever.[AF]
[AE] This may be said of it in reference to its French, Italian, and Spanish appellation, but not in regard to its English one. In German too, its name conveys this idea; stachet-schwein literally swine with thorns.
[AF] It is probable that the resemblance of the flesh of this animal with that of the hog has contributed more to his having the name which he bears, than any supposed exterior or interior affinities between them.
Travellers and naturalists have almost unanimously declared this animal has the faculty of discharging its quills, and with such force as to wound its foes at a great distance; and that these prickly quills have the extraordinary property of penetrating farther into the flesh of their own accord and power, as soon as the point has made an entrance. This last circumstance is purely imaginary, without any foundation, and the first is as false as the second. The error seems to have arisen from this animal raising his prickles upright when he is irritated; and as some of them are only inserted into the skin by a small pellicle they easily fall off. We have had many living porcupines, but never saw them dart any of their quills, even though violently agitated. It is a matter of astonishment, therefore, that the gravest authors, both ancient and modern, as well as the most sensible travellers, should join in opinion respecting a circumstance so entirely false. Some affirm that they have been wounded by this sort of darting; others, assert that the quills are darted with such vengeance, as to pierce a plank at a great distance. The marvellous commonly is pleasingly believed, and increases in proportion to the number of hands it passes through. Truth, on the contrary, diminishes in the same degree; and in spite of the positive negative which I have placed on these two fictions, I am persuaded, that many future writers will assert that the porcupine darts his quills to a distance, and that when those quills are separated from the body of the animal, they will of themselves, and with their own exertions, penetrate deeper into those bodies in which the point has entered.
However, in justice to Dr. Shaw, we must except him from the number of these credulous travellers; “Of all the number of porcupines (says he) which I have seen in Africa, I have never yet met with one, who could dart their quills, however strongly he was irritated; their common method of defence is to lie on one side, and when the enemy approaches very near, to rise suddenly and wound him with the points of the other.”
The porcupine, although originally a native of the hottest climates of Africa and India, lives and multiplies in colder countries, such as Persia, Spain, and Italy. Agricola says, that the porcupine had not been transported into Europe, much before his time. They are found in Spain, but more commonly in Italy, especially on the Appenine mountains, in the environs of Rome.
Pliny, and other naturalists, have said, after Aristotle, that the porcupine, like the bear, conceals himself during winter, and that they bring forth in thirty days. We have not had it in our power to verify these facts; and it is singular, that in Italy where this animal is common, and where there has ever been skilful philosophers and excellent observers of nature, that its history has never been written by any of them. Aldrovandus in speaking on this subject, has, like the rest, only copied Gesner; and the gentlemen of the academy, who have dissected eight of these animals, say very little that has any relation to their natural habits. We only learn from the testimonies of travellers, and persons who have kept them in menageries, that the porcupine in its domestic state, is neither savage nor furious, but only anxious for liberty; that with the assistance of its fore teeth, which are sharp and strong like those of the beaver, he easily cuts through his wooden prison. It is also known that he feeds willingly on fruits, cheese, and crumbs of bread; that in his wild state, he lives upon roots and wild grain; that when he can enter a garden he makes great havock[AG], eating the herbs, roots, fruit, &c. that he becomes fat, like most other animals, toward the end of summer; and that the flesh of this animal, although a little insipid, is tolerable eating.
[AG] The porcupine is a perfect scourge to the gardens of the Cape of Good Hope; he commits great ravages in the plantations of cabbage, and other kitchen herbs. The wild herb of which this animal is most fond, is the Calla Ethiopica, which however, is so acrid, according to Sparrman, that the root or the leaves applied to any part of the body will raise a blister.
When the form, substance, and organization of the prickles of the porcupine are considered, they are found to be tubes to which only vanes are wanting to make them real feathers. They strike together and make a noise as the animal walks; he can easily erect them in the same manner as the peacock spreads the feathers of his tail, and as easily smooths them again by the contraction of the cuticular muscle. This muscle, therefore, has the same power, and is nearly of the same formation in the porcupine as in some birds.