other sluggish
non-combatant of our woodlands. Immunity from foes, from effort,
from struggle is always purchased with a price.

Certain of our natural history romancers have taken liberties
with the porcupine in one respect: they have shown him made up
into a ball and rolling down a hill. One writer makes him do this
in a sportive mood; he rolls down a long hill in the woods, and
at the bottom he is a ragged mass of leaves which his quills have
impaled--an apparition that nearly frightened a rabbit out of its
wits. Let any one who knows the porcupine try to fancy it
performing a feat like this!

Another romancer makes his porcupine roll himself into a ball
when attacked by a panther, and then on a nudge from his enemy
roll down a snowy incline into the water. I believe the little
European hedgehog can roll itself up into something like a ball,
but our porcupine does not. I have tried all sorts of tricks with
him, and made all sorts of assaults upon him, at different times,
and I have never yet seen him assume the globular form. It would
not be the best form for him to assume, because it would partly
expose his vulnerable under side. The one thing the porcupine
seems bent upon doing at all times is to keep right side up with
care. His attitude of defense is crouching close to the ground,
head drawn in and pressed down, the circular shield of large
quills upon his back opened and extended as far as possible, and
the tail stretched back rigid and held close upon the ground.
"Now come on," he says, "if you want to." The tail is his weapon
of active defense; with it he strikes upward like lightning, and
drives the quills into whatever they touch. In his chapter called
"In Panoply of Spears," Mr. Roberts paints the porcupine without
taking any liberties with the creature's known habits. He
portrays one characteristic of the porcupine very felicitously:
"As the porcupine made his resolute way through the woods, the
manner of his going differed from that of all the other kindreds
of the wild. He went not furtively. He had no particular
objection to making a noise. He did not consider it necessary to
stop every little while, stiffen himself to a monument of
immobility, cast wary glances about the gloom, and sniff the air
for the taint of enemies. He did not care who knew of his coming,
and he did not greatly care who came. Behind his panoply of
biting spears he felt himself secure, and in that security he
moved as if he he