One peculiarity is that the extremity of the dorsal part of the tail is prehensile. This portion is deprived of quills for a length of about six inches.
The coendou does not like to be disturbed. When it is, it advances toward the intruder, and endeavors to frighten him by raising its quills all over its body. The natives of Central America eat its flesh and employ its quills for various domestic purposes.
The animal is quite extensively distributed throughout South America. It is found in Brazil, Venezuela, Colombia, Guiana, and in some of the Lesser Antilles, such as Trinidad, Barbados, Saint Lucia, etc.
LITTLE QUEEN PET AND HER KINGDOM.
With these words the stranger vanished, and Pet trotted on her way again, with the clock and key in her pocket.
She had not gone far till she began to notice a great many little cabins and cottages about the country, which looked very bare and uncomfortable. "Surely these must belong to the poor!" she thought; "and I daresay that is a very poor man who is following the plough over in that field."
She walked across the meadows until she reached the ploughman, and having noticed that his clothing was very bad indeed, and that he looked worn and sad, she formed her wish, and the next moment she was following the plough as if she had been at it all her life. She had passed completely into the man; there was not a vestige of her left outside of him; she felt her hands quite hard and horny; she took great long steps over the rough ground; she cried "Gee-up!" to the horses; and she knew very well if she could only look into a glass she should see, not Pet any more, but the sunburnt man toiling after his plough. She was quite bewildered by the change at first, but presently she began to interest herself greatly in all the new thoughts that poured into her mind. After a time she quite lost sight of her old self, and felt that she was the man. She put her horny hand in her pocket, and found that the clock and key were there safely, and this consoled her with the thought that she was not hopelessly buried in the ploughman. When the sun went down she stopped ploughing and went home to a little cottage which was hidden among some bushes in a field.
Half a dozen little hungry children, with poor, scanty clothing came running to meet her.