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The Porcupines and Hedgehogs, though usually classed elsewhere, on account of their teeth, their food, and a few other reasons not very natural, should certainly stand in this group of odd animals; and here let us place them.
Dense thickets of pawpaw, hazel and wild cherry offer coverts for the shy and furtive kindred of the forest: goggle-eyed rabbits, restless as wind-blown leaves; mice, with their intricate system of runways among the grass roots; slow-moving porcupines, prickly as huge sandburs; and occasionally a stately buck or savage-eyed Canada lynx.
That evening, to cheer our souls, Learoyd, Ortheris, and I went into the waste to smoke out a porcupine. All the dogs attended, but even their clamor and they began to discuss the shortcomings of porcupines before they left cantonments could not take us out of ourselves.
But here they were certainly far larger and much more terrible they were alive. They were advance posts of the Snow Queen, and had the strangest shapes. A few looked like ugly great porcupines; others like knots formed of snakes, which stretched forth their heads; and others like little fat bears, whose hair stood up on end; all were brilliantly white, all were living snowflakes.
How conclusive it would be to wait till the porcupines were absorbed in their consumption of the herring-tub, and then pour scalding water down upon them. After all, it was more important that she should vanquish her enemies than prove to a mere man that they really were her enemies. What did she care, anyway, what that Joe Barron thought? Then, once more, a doubt assailed her.
"It's quite the same, sir porcupine or hedgehog. I know perfectly well what you mean." "Porcupines," I resumed, "are very common in America. The Chippeways call them hotchewitchi." This Rommany word was a plumper for the Gipsy, and the twinkle of his eye the smallest star of mirth in the darkest night of gravity I ever beheld in my life was lovely.
Pets, in the form of birds and the smaller mammals, especially hornbills, parrokeets, squirrels, porcupines, are kept in wicker cages. About the age of ten years the Kayan boy begins to wear a waist-cloth his first garment his sister having assumed the apron some two or three years earlier; we are not aware of any ceremony connected with this.
The interior seemed rather fresh and gay when contrasted with the time-worn exterior, but the stamped leathern hangings, tiled floors, emblazoned beams, and carved fireplaces were quite correct. Dragons and crowns, porcupines and salamanders, monograms and flowers, shone everywhere in a maze of scarlet and gold, brown and silver, purple and white.
But fortunately for him the ewe understood the peculiarities of porcupines. Just in time she noted his danger, and rudely butted him aside. He turned upon her in a fume of amazed indignation; but in some way she made him understand that the porcupine was above all law, and not to be trifled with even by the lords of the wilderness.
But it is otherwise with the Bubi. A little rum, a few beads, and finish then he will turn the rest of his attention to catching porcupines, or the beautiful little gazelles, gray on the back, and white underneath, with which the island abounds. And what time he may have on hand after this, he spends in building houses and making himself hats.
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