ndian porcupines in three sub-families, _Hystrix_,
_Acanthion_, and _Atherura_; and _Acanthion_ he some years after
(1866, _see_ 'P. Z. S.' p. 308) divided again into three groups,
_OEdocephalus_, _Acanthochaerus_ and _Acanthion_. The difference in
the skull of _Hystrix_ and _Acanthion_ lies in the intermaxillaries
and the grinders, as follows:--

_Hystrix_--Inter-max. broad, truncated, wide behind as before;
_grinders_ oblong, longer than broad, one fold on the inner, and
three or four on the outer side.

_Acanthion_--Inter-max. triangular, tapering behind; _grinders_
sub-cylindrical, not longer than broad, one fold on the inner, two
or three on the outer side.

According to Waterhouse the European porcupine (_Hystrix cristata_
of Linnaeus) is the _Acanthion Cuvieri_ of Gray; and Gray, who
afterwards modified his views of 1847 in 1866, wrote of it: "I am
not aware of any external characters by which this species can be
distinguished from the _Hystrix cristata_, though the skull is so
different." Gray in another place writes that: "Though the skulls
of _H. leucurus_ preserve a very distinct character, yet they vary
so much amongst themselves as to show that skulls afford no better
character for the distinction of species than any other single
character, such as colour, but can only be depended on when taken
in connection with the rest of the organisation." In these
circumstances I think it will be better not to attempt any further
subdivision of the Indian porcupines in the present work beyond the
two already given, viz. _Hystrix_ and _Atherura_. There is a great
similarity between the Indian _H. leucura_ and the European _H.
cristata_. According to Waterhouse the quills in the lumbar region,
which are white in the Indian, are dusky in the European, which last
has long white points to the bristles of the crest, whereas in the
Indian one some only of the points are white, and the rest quite
brown.

The Indian porcupine lives in burrows, in banks, hill sides, on the
bunds of tanks, and in the sides of rivers and nullahs. It is
nocturnal in its habits, and in the vicinity of cultivation does much
damage to such garden stuff as consists of tubers or roots. In the
jungle its food consists chiefly of roots, especially of some kinds
of wild yam (_Dioscorea_). I have found porcupines in the densest
bamboo jungles of the central provinces, where their food was
doubtless young bamboo shoots and various kind of roots.

The