I had not gone fifty
yards from camp when I knew I was near the source of the sound.
Presently I saw a porcupine on a log, and as I approached the sound
ceased, and the animal moved away. A curious kind of chant he made, or
note of wonder and surprise at my presence on the mountain,--or was he
calling together the clan for a midnight raid upon my camp?

I made my bed that night of ferns and balsam boughs under an overhanging
rock, where the storm that swept across the mountain just after dark
could not reach me. I lay down, rolled in my blankets, with a long staff
by my side, in anticipation of visits from the porcupines. In the middle
of the night I was awakened, and, looking out of my den, saw a porcupine
outlined against the starlit sky. I made a thrust at him with my staff,
when, with a grunt or grumble, he disappeared. A little later I was
awakened again by the same animal, or another, which I repelled as
before. At intervals during the rest of the night they visited me in
this way; my sleep was by short stages from one porcupine to another.

These animals are great gnawers. They seem to be specially fond of
gnawing any tool or object that has been touched or used by human hands.
They would probably have gnawed my shoes or lunch basket or staff had I
lain still. A settler at the foot of the mountain told me they used to
prove very annoying to him by getting into his cellar or woodshed at
night, and indulging their ruling passion by chewing upon his
tool-handles or pails or harness. "Kick one of them outdoors," he said,
"and in half an hour he is back again." In winter they usually live in
trees, gnawing the bark and feeding upon the inner layer. I have seen
large hemlocks quite denuded and killed in this way.

XII

THE OPOSSUM

A new track has appeared upon the snow in my neighborhood here on the
Hudson within the past few years. It is a strange track, and suggests
some small, deformed human hand. If the dwarfs or brownies we read of in
childhood were to walk abroad in winter, they might leave such an
imprint behind them as this.

This track, which we seldom see later than December, is made by the
opossum. This animal is evidently multiplying in the land, and is
extending its range northward. Ten years ago they were rarely found
here, and now they are very common. I hear that they are very abundant
and troublesome on parts of Long Island. The hind foot of the opossum
has a sort of thumb that opposes