and is then compelled to submit to the
painful operation of having them withdrawn.

A sportsman relates that he once came upon a dead porcupine and a dead
bald eagle lying upon the ground within a few yards of each other. The
eagle had partly torn the porcupine to pieces, but in attacking it with
its beak it had driven numerous spines of the animal into its throat,
and from their effect had apparently died as soon as its victim.

The quill of a porcupine is like a bad habit: if it once gets hold it
constantly works deeper and deeper, though the quill has no power of
motion in itself; it is the live, active flesh of its victim that draws
it in by means of the barbed point. One day my boy and I encountered a
porcupine on the top of one of the Catskills, and we had a little circus
with him; we wanted to wake him up, and make him show a little
excitement, if possible. Without violence or injury to him, we succeeded
to the extent of making his eyes fairly stand out from his head, but
quicken his motion he would not,--probably could not.

What astonished and alarmed him seemed to be that his quills had no
effect upon his enemies; they laughed at his weapons. He stuck his head
under a rock and left his back and tail exposed. This is the porcupine's
favorite position of defense. "Now come if you dare," he seems to say.
Touch his tail, and like a trap it springs up and strikes your hand full
of little quills. The tail is the active weapon of defense; with this
the animal strikes. It is the outpost that delivers its fire before the
citadel is reached. It is doubtless this fact that has given rise to the
popular notion that the porcupine can shoot its quills, which of course
it cannot do.

With a rotten stick we sprang the animal's tail again and again, till
its supply of quills began to run low, and the creature grew uneasy.
"What does this mean?" he seemed to say, his excitement rising. His
shield upon his back, too, we trifled with, and when we finally drew him
forth with a forked stick, his eyes were ready to burst from his head.
In what a peevish, injured tone the creature did complain of our unfair
tactics! He protested and protested, and whimpered and scolded, like
some infirm old man tormented by boys. His game after we led him forth
was to keep himself as much as possible in the shape of a ball, but with
two sticks and a cord we finally threw him over on his back and exposed
his quill-less and vulnerable under side, w