SKULL OF THE PORCUPINE.
The Porcupines fall readily into two distinct groups (sub-families) characterised by structure, habits, and geographical distribution. In the strictly terrestrial species, or True Porcupines (HYSTRICINÆ), which inhabit the warmer parts of the eastern hemisphere, the skull is rather more elongated than in the others; the front margin of the orbit is over the third molar; the molars are rootless when young, but become closed after a time, and the clavicles are imperfect. The upper lip is furrowed; the tail, which may be either long or short, is never prehensile; the soles of the feet are smooth; and the female has six teats.
COMMON PORCUPINE.
The arboreal species (SPHINGURINÆ), which are all American, have the skull peculiarly short, the front margin of the orbit over the first molar, the molars always rooted, and the clavicles perfect. The upper lip is not furrowed; the tail is moderate or long, and generally prehensile; the soles of the feet are covered with wart-like tubercles; and the female has only four teats.
The COMMON PORCUPINE (Hystrix cristata) may serve as a characteristic and well-known example of the first of these two groups. It is an inhabitant of the Mediterranean region, occurring in most parts of North Africa, and extending as far southwards as the Gambia and Soudan; in Southern Europe it is abundant in Italy, Sicily, and Greece. It measures about twenty-seven or twenty-eight inches in length to the root of the tail, which is about four inches long. The head, shoulders, limbs, and under parts are clothed with short spines intermixed with hairs usually of a dusky or brownish-black hue; the neck is marked with a whitish collar; from the back of the head and neck there rises a great crest of long bristles, many of them fifteen or sixteen inches in length, which can be elevated and depressed at the pleasure of the animal, are gently curved backwards, and are either dusky with the extremities white, or whitish throughout; the hinder portion of the body is entirely covered by a great number of long, sharp spines, ringed with black and white, but always having the extremities white. These spines vary considerably in size, some of them being very long (fifteen or sixteen inches), comparatively slender and flexible; others shorter (from six to twelve inches), but much stouter. They are all hollow, or filled only with a sort of spongy tissue, but from their structure are exceedingly resistant, and when the animal erects them, which he is able to do by contracting the muscles of the skin in which their roots are imbedded, they constitute a most formidable armature. They appear to be but loosely attached to the skin, and readily fall out, a circumstance which no doubt gave rise to the belief prevalent among the ancients (and many moderns) that the Porcupine was able to shoot his spines at an approaching enemy, or even to project them behind him at a pursuer when he was rushing away in search of a place of safety. The tail of the animal bears at its tip about twenty spines of very curious construction; they are about two inches long, hollow, open, and cut off square at the end, and about a quarter of an inch in diameter for the greater part of their length, but they are inserted into the skin by the extremity of a thin stalk half an inch long.
The Porcupine lives in holes among the rocks, or in a burrow, which he makes for himself in ordinary ground. In this retreat he passes the day in sleep, coming forth in the evening in search of food, which consists of herbage of various kinds, fruits, roots, and the bark and leaves of trees and bushes. He is slow in his movements, and does not even display much activity in burrowing. His habits are solitary except during the pairing season; and during the winter he passes most of his time in his habitation, without, however, falling into a torpid state. The pairing takes place early in the year, but varies in this respect according to the climate of the locality; and in the spring or early summer the female produces from two to four young, in a nest carefully lined with leaves, grasses, roots, and other vegetable substances. The young Porcupines are born with their eyes open, and their bodies are covered with short, soft spines, which are pressed closely to the body. These speedily harden and grow longer, and the young do not appear to remain very long with their mother. The flesh of the Porcupine, like that of most purely vegetable-feeding Rodents, is very good, and is eaten in the countries where the animal occurs. When pursued or irritated, he stands on the defensive, erects his formidable quills and crest, stamps on the ground with his hind feet after the manner of a Hare, jerks himself towards the object of his dread, as if to wound it with his spines, and at the same time produces a curious noise by rattling the open quills of the tip of his tail. But all these manœuvres are generally in vain, and the Porcupine, in spite of his defensive armour, is pretty easily captured by those who know how to set about it. The Leopard is said to manage the business at once by a single blow of his paw on the head.
A very similar Porcupine (Hystrix hirsutirostris) takes the place of this species in Syria and Asia Minor, and extends thence eastward to India; another (H. javanica) inhabits the Sunda Islands; and the district of Nepaul has a peculiar species of its own. In Siam and Malacca, and on the west coast of Africa, we find two species of an allied genus, in which the spines of the body are comparatively short and depressed, and the tail is elongated, scaly, with a few scattered bristles in the middle, and with a large tuft of long flat bristles at the tip. The Malayan species (Atherura fasciculata) is about eighteen inches long, the African one (A. africana) about fourteen inches. Both are somewhat rat-like in their form.
The Tree Porcupines, forming the second sub-family, several species with prehensile tails, range over the continent of South America, east of the Andes, and one of them, the Mexican Tree Porcupine (Sphingurus mexicanus), is found as far north as Guatemala and Southern Mexico. The most abundant and widely-distributed species in the Brazilian region are the COUENDOU (Sphingurus prehensilis) and the COUIY (S. villosus), inhabiting Guiana, Brazil, and Bolivia, the latter being found throughout the forest region of Brazil and as far south as Paraguay.