In every article we have to treat of we always meet with more errors to confute than facts to relate. This arises from the history of animals having been only written of late by prejudiced persons, who take the list of their little systems for the genuine register of Nature. There are not any animals of the warm climates of the old continent existing in America, and reciprocally there are not any of the South American animals to be met with under the torrid zone of Africa and Asia. The porcupine, as already observed, is a native of the hot countries of the old world, and having never been found in the new, they have not hesitated to give his name to animals which seemed to resemble him, and particularly to that which we have now under consideration. On the other hand, the Coendou ([fig. 163.]) of America has been transported to the East Indies; and Piso, who probably was not acquainted with the porcupine, has made Bontius, who only speaks of animals in the southern parts of Asia, engrave the coendou of America under the name and description of the true porcupine; so that, at the first view, we should firmly believe, that this animal existed equally in America and in Asia. It is easy, however, to discover, with a little attention, that Piso, who is in this, as well as in most parts of his work, only a plagiarist of Marcgrave, has not only copied his figure of the coendou, into his history of Brasil, but has copied it again for the work of Bontius, of which he was the editor. Therefore, though we find the figure of the coendou in Bontius, we must not conclude, that it exists in Java, or in any other part of the East Indies, nor take this figure for that of the porcupine, which, in fact, the coendou only resembles by its quills or prickles.
It is to Ximenes, and afterwards to Hernandes, that we owe the first knowledge of this animal, which they have indicated under the Mexican name of hoitztlacuatzin. The tlacuatzin is the opossum and the hoitztlacuatzin should be translated the bristly or spinous opossum. This name has been misapplied, for these animals resemble each other very little. Marcgrave has not adopted this Mexican denomination, but calls this animal cuandu. The only thing we can reproach Marcgrave with, is his not having known, that the cuandu of Brasil was the same animal as the hoitztlacuatzin of Mexico, especially as his description and figure agree with those of Hernandes; and as Laët, the editor and commentator of Marcgrave expressly says, that the spiny tlacuatzin of Ximenes, and the cuandu, are probably the same animal. By collecting the scattered accounts of travellers there appears to be two varieties of these animals, which the naturalists, after Piso, have inserted in their lists as two different species, namely, the great and the little coendou: but what immediately proves the error, or negligence of Piso, is, that although he describes these coendous in two separate and distinct articles, and seems to look on them as different species, he represents both by the same figure: which, we think, sufficient foundation to pronounce them the same animal. There are likewise other naturalists who have not only made two species of the great and little coendou but have also separated the hoitztlacuatzin, and given all three as different animals. I own, indeed, that although it is probable, the coendou and the hoitztlacuatzin are the same animal, yet this identity is not so certain as that of the great and little coendou.
However that may be, the coendou is not the porcupine. He is much smaller; his head and muzzle shorter; he has no tuft on its head nor is his upper lip divided; his quills are proportionally shorter and much finer; his tail is long, and that of the porcupine very short: he is carnivorous rather than frugivorous, and endeavours to surprize birds, small animals, and poultry, while the porcupine only feeds upon herbs, roots, and fruits. He sleeps all the day like the hedge-hog, and only stirs out in the night: he climbs up trees, and hangs on branches by his tail. All travellers agree, that his flesh is very good eating. He is easily tamed, and commonly lives in high places. These animals are found over all America, from Brasil and Guiana, to Louisiana and the southern parts of Canada; while the porcupine is only to be found in the hottest parts of the Old Continent.
By conferring the name of porcupine on the coendou, the same faculties have been attributed to him, especially that of shooting his quills. It is astonishing that naturalists and travellers should agree on this circumstance, and that Piso, who ought to have been less superstitious, as he was a physician, should gravely assert, that the quills of the coendou pierce into the flesh by their own power, and penetrate into the body even to the most internal viscera. Ray is the only person who has denied these circumstances, although they evidently appear to be absurd. How many absurdities have been exposed by men of sense, which, nevertheless, are affirmed by other men who think they are endowed with a greater degree of understanding!
SUPPLEMENT.