to see what the dogs would do
with him, and what the "quill-pig" would do with the dogs. As the
climber advanced the rodent went higher, till the limb he clung
to was no larger than one's wrist. This the young man seized and
shook vigorously. I expected to see the slow, stupid porcupine
drop, but he did not. He only tightened his hold. The climber
tightened his hold, too, and shook the harder. Still the bundle
of quills did not come down, and no amount of shaking could bring
it down. Then I handed a long pole up to the climber, and he
tried to punch the animal down. This attack in the rear was
evidently a surprise; it produced an impression different from
that of the shaking. The porcupine struck the pole with his tail,
put up the shield of quills upon his back, and assumed his best
attitude of defense. Still the pole persisted in its persecution,
regardless of the quills; evidently the animal was astonished: he
had never had an experience like this before; he had now met a
foe that despised his terrible quills. Then he began to back
rapidly down the tree in the face of his enemy. The young man's
sweetheart stood below, a highly interested spectator. "Look out,
Sam, he's coming down!" "Be quick, he's gaining on you!" "Hurry,
Sam!" Sam came as fast as he could, but he had to look out for
his footing, and his antagonist did not. Still, he reached the
ground first, and his sweetheart breathed more easily. It looked
as if the porcupine reasoned thus: "My quills are useless against
a foe so far away; I must come to close quarters with him." But,
of course, the stupid creature had no such mental process, and
formed no such purpose. He had found the tree unsafe, and his
instinct now was to get to the ground as quickly as possible and
take refuge among the rocks. As he came down I hit him a slight
blow over the nose with a rotten stick, hoping only to confuse
him a little, but much to my surprise and mortification he
dropped to the ground and rolled down the hill dead, having
succumbed to a blow that a woodchuck or a coon would hardly have
regarded at all. Thus does the easy, passive mode of defense of
the porcupine not only dull his wits, but it makes frail and
brittle the thread of his life. He has had no struggles or
battles to harden and toughen him.

That blunt nose of his is as tender as a baby's, and he is
snuffed out by a blow that would hardly bewilder for a moment any
other forest animal, unless it be the skunk, an