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Porcupine   Listen
noun
Porcupine  n.  
1.
(Zool.) Any Old Word rodent of the genus Hystrix, having the back covered with long, sharp, erectile spines or quills, sometimes a foot long. The common species of Europe and Asia (Hystrix cristata) is the best known.
2.
(Zool.) Any species of Erethizon and related genera, native of America. They are related to the true porcupines, but have shorter spines, and are arboreal in their habits. The Canada porcupine (Erethizon dorsatus) is a well known species.
Porcupine ant-eater (Zool.), the echidna.
Porcupine crab (Zool.), a large spiny Japanese crab (Acantholithodes hystrix).
Porcupine disease (Med.). See Ichthyosis.
Porcupine fish (Zool.), any plectognath fish having the body covered with spines which become erect when the body is inflated. See Diodon, and Globefish.
Porcupine grass (Bot.), a grass (Stipa spartea) with grains bearing a stout twisted awn, which, by coiling and uncoiling through changes in moisture, propels the sharp-pointed and barbellate grain into the wool and flesh of sheep. It is found from Illinois westward.
Porcupine wood (Bot.), the hard outer wood of the cocoa palm; so called because, when cut horizontally, the markings of the wood resemble the quills of a porcupine.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Porcupine" Quotes from Famous Books



... needle-gun, up to a cannon cast by Krupp, capable of hurling a ball weighing two thousand pounds through eighteen inches of solid steel. I saw too, the armor from the shell of a turtle that one of our brave ancestors lashed upon his breast when he went to fight for his country, the skin of a porcupine, dried with the quills on, which this same savage pulled over his orthodox head, up to the shirts of mail that were worn in the middle ages, that laughed at the edge of the sword and defied the point of the spear; up to a ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll, Volume I • Robert Green Ingersoll

... went whenever he wanted anything, always had money in it. This box he never locked, having learned that he need fear no robbery by once leaving his cloak for two days under a bush and then finding it again. "This world," he exclaimed, "is too good: it will not last." Among his pets were a porcupine trained to prick the legs of his guests under the table "so that they drew them in quickly"; a raven that spoke like a human being; an eagle, and many snakes. He also studied necromancy, the better to frighten his apprentices. He left Florence ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas

... the Isle of Dogs, there where the blatant beast doth rule and reign, renting the credit of whom it please. Where serpents' tongues the penmen are to write, Where cats do wawl by day, dogs by night. There shall engorged venom be my ink, My pen a sharper quill of porcupine, My stained paper this sin-loaden earth. There will I write in lines shall never die, ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various

... the great sharp-muzzled dog that had been crouching at his feet, and he bent down and began to pull out small porcupine quills that had become fastened in the animal's nose ...
— The Peace of Roaring River • George van Schaick

... one before, one behind, sewed together at their edges. They were embroidered with porcupine quills brightly dyed, and fringed with the black scalp-locks of the enemies whom he had slain in combat, and tasseled with ermine tails. They were pictured with his deeds, painted in ...
— Boys' Book of Indian Warriors - and Heroic Indian Women • Edwin L. Sabin

... the secrets of its fiery prison-house. Yet it knows how to tell enough of the horrors of that gruesome place to make the hair of a stronger mortal than Hamlet is, stand on end, 'like quills upon the fretful porcupine.' ...
— Shakspere And Montaigne • Jacob Feis

... Brother-hood then play their prizes, Like Mummers in Religion with Disguizes? Out-brave us with a name in rank and file, A name which if't were train'd would spread a mile; The Saints Monopoly, the zealous Cluster, Which like a Porcupine presents ...
— The Lives of the Most Famous English Poets (1687) • William Winstanley

... had also walked to the temple twice before, and her feet had got as hard as two little stones. But the king and his relatives were tired to death; and their feet swelled up to the size of an elephant's, and they became as full of thorns as the back of a porcupine. And they muttered to each other, "How on earth does that ugly little daughter-in-law manage to walk as she does through the heart of the forest?" The ugly daughter-in-law at last felt sorry for them. She prayed to the god Shiva to build a temple near at ...
— Deccan Nursery Tales - or, Fairy Tales from the South • Charles Augustus Kincaid

... if the Saint's beard the rash challenge had heard Which she utter'd, of what was beneath her forgetful Each particular hair stood on end in the chair, Like a porcupine's quills when the ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton

... Romans are so domestic, that it seemed a great thing to have their sons and lovers gone even for a few months. The English—or at least those of the illiberal, bristling nature too often met here, which casts out its porcupine quills against everything like enthusiasm (of the more generous Saxon blood I know some noble examples)—laughed at all this. They have said that this people would not fight; when the Sicilians, men and women, did so nobly, ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... is the porcupine ant-eater, or Tasmanian hedgehog. It is much larger than the English hedgehog, and can not roll itself into a ball. Its back is covered with very stout spines protruding from a coat of thick gray fur, and in place of a mouth it has a round bill about two inches long. One of these strange creatures ...
— Harper's Young People, March 2, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... addition to this, during the winter season, they also resort to the buffalo robe. The squaws of the various tribes of Indians on the plains are well versed in the art of tanning and dressing buffalo hides. They frequently ornament them with beads, porcupine quills and rude paintings. In times long since gone by, these robes could be purchased, or rather traded for, at good bargains; but, the unlimited and increasing demand for them has greatly enhanced their value. Now days they ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters

... occasions, the blooming damsels wound round their foreheads fancy-colored handkerchiefs, streaming with gay ribbons, or plumed with flowers. The matrons wore the short jacket or petticoat. The foot was left uncovered and free, but on holidays it was adorned with the light moccasin, brilliant with porcupine quills, shells, ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler

... inches long and an inch in diameter. Giring landak (Crotalaria retusa) is a papilionaceous flower resembling the lupin, yellow, and tinged at the extremities with red. From the rattling of its seed in the pod it obtains its name, which signifies porcupine-bells, alluding to the small bells worn about the ankles of children. The daup (bauhinia) is a small, white, semiflosculous flower, with a faint smell. The leaves alone attract notice, being double, as if united by a hinge, and this peculiarity suggested ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden

... warm day that a new notion came to Bagheera—born of something that he had heard. Perhaps Ikki the Porcupine had told him; but he said to Mowgli when they were deep in the jungle, as the boy lay with his head on Bagheera's beautiful black skin, "Little Brother, how often have I told thee that Shere Khan ...
— The Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling

... dinner he had time to call upon the magistrates' clerk, and ask a few questions as to the proceedings at the sitting from which Mr Crawley was committed. He found a very taciturn old man, who was nearly as difficult to deal with in any rummaging process as a porcupine. But, nevertheless, at last he reached a state of conversation which was not absolutely hostile. Mr Toogood pleaded that he was the poor man's cousin,—pleaded that, as the family lawyer, he was naturally the poor man's protector at such a time ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope

... ball curled up at the foot of the tree, and the monkey striking at it savagely with his paws, while porcupine quills were sticking in his face and body, ...
— Mr. Stubbs's Brother - A Sequel to 'Toby Tyler' • James Otis

... depended from either ear, and his arms were encircled above the elbow with broad gold bands. The limbs were encased in leggings of dressed fawn skin, ornamented along the seams with a fringe of scalp-locks; a guarantee of his personal bravery. Moccasins worked into grotesque designs with beads and porcupine quills covered his feet. Pervading all like an intangible essence was that ever present frank bearing and dignified courtesy, that at once marked him as a chieftain and ruler among men. Such was the medicine man of the Camanches and the ...
— Seven and Nine years Among the Camanches and Apaches - An Autobiography • Edwin Eastman

... ondherstand that the Queen—God bless her!—does not reckon for a privit soldier to kape elephints an' palanquins an' sich in barricks. Afther we had dhragged ut down from Dearsley's through that cruel scrub that near broke Orth'ris's heart, we set ut in the ravine for a night; an' a thief av a porcupine an' a civet-cat av a jackal roosted in ut, as well we knew in the mornin'. I put ut to you, sorr, is an elegint palanquin, fit for the princess, the natural abidin' place av all the vermin in cantonmints? We brought ut to you, ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling

... Yucca tree, an abnormal growth of the lily family. The trunk, about 2 feet in diameter, is a spongy mass, not susceptible of treatment to which the other specimens are subjected. Its bark is an irregular stringy, knotted mass, with porcupine-quill-like leaves springing out in place of the limbs that grow from all well-regulated trees. One specimen of the yucca was sent to the museum two years ago, and though the roots and top of the tree were sawn off, shoots sprang out, and a number of the handsome ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 360, November 25, 1882 • Various

... to be. Here Doltaire, seeing that my words had indeed affected my opponent, said: "A double retreat! He swore to give a challenge to-night, and he cries off like a sheep from a porcupine; his courage is so slack, he dares not move a step to his liberty. It was a bet, a hazard. He was to drink glass for glass with any and all of us, and fight sword for sword with any of us who gave him cause. Having drunk his courage to death, he'd now browse at the feet of those ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... the place "Ma-losh- an! Ma-losh-an!" (fine! fine!) and in less than an hour the tents were pitched and made comfortable. New experiences seemed to be coming thick and fast, for we had supper of porcupine down on the rocks at the shore. ...
— A Woman's Way Through Unknown Labrador • Mina Benson Hubbard (Mrs. Leonidas Hubbard, Junior)

... remarkable appliance of the Venus's Fly-trap, or the still more astonishing one of that water-plant by which infant-fish are captured. Though it is impossible to imagine how, by direct influence of increased use, such dermal appendages as a porcupine's quills could have been developed; yet, profiting as the members of a species otherwise defenceless might do by the stiffness of their hairs, rendering them unpleasant morsels to eat, it is a feasible supposition that from successive survivals of individuals ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer

... 12. The "True Briton," the "Star," the "Traveller." The True Briton, a government organ in the 1790's, which afterwards assimilated Cobbett's Porcupine. The Star was founded by Peter Stuart, Daniel Stuart's brother, in 1788. It was the first London evening paper to appear regularly. The Traveller, founded about 1803, still flourishes under the ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb

... tomes for the quotations from ancient authors which he was so fond of bringing into his text, and which make a writer at this end of the nineteenth century smile at the thought of how all the quills would rise upon that fretful and pampered porcupine, the reading public of to-day, if Latin and Greek were ladled out to ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker

... 1878 at the crossing of the Stikine River, and that of 1899 at the summits of the White and Chilkoot passes, it runs much farther inland from the Klehini than the temporary line of the later modus vivendi, and leaves the entire mining district of the Porcupine River and Glacier Creek within the jurisdiction ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... than once. I, too, came in for my share of her ill temper, as most certainly would Brandon, had he allowed himself to come within reach of her tongue, which he was careful not to do. An angry porcupine would have been pleasant company compared with Mary during this time. There was no living with her in peace. Even the king fought shy of her, and the queen was almost afraid to speak. Probably so much general ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major

... Arden (in my own little tin-pot way) I turned silently and sadly from the window, for I was n't wanted in that company. I thought of going round to the back premises in search of a men's hut; but before regaining the gate, I trod on a porcupine cactus, and forgot everything else for the time. Then, as I lay on the ground outside the gate, caressing the sole of my foot, and comforting myself with the thought that a brave man battling with the storms of fate is a sight worthy the admiration ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy

... riding nag and cart horses, he has also at least one buffalo runner, which he never mounts until he is about to charge the buffalo. The "runner" is tended with all the care which the cavalier of old bestowed on his war steed; his housing and trappings are garnished with beads and porcupine quills, exhibiting all the skill which the hunter's wife or belle can exercise; while head and tail display all the colours of the rainbow in the variety of ribbon ...
— Notes of a Twenty-Five Years' Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory - Volume II. (of 2) • John M'lean

... a porcupine of yourself, it isn't becoming. Settle your wig, Jo, and tell me if I shall telegraph to your mother, or do anything?" asked Laurie, who never had been reconciled to the loss of ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott

... stopped at the gate, and all the family went out to inspect the articles of their own manufacture, which the Indians humbly offered for sale. These consisted of baskets ornamented with porcupine quills, moccasins of deer-skin, and boxes of birch bark. Mrs. Lee's and Aunt Abby's heart bled for the way-worn looking mothers and their patient babes; they relieved their feelings, however, by making them eat as much as they would. Uncle John and Tom were glad to buy some ...
— The Young Emigrants; Madelaine Tube; The Boy and the Book; and - Crystal Palace • Susan Anne Livingston Ridley Sedgwick

... being tinged with yellow; in flavour; in being smooth or downy,—few, however, of the Red gooseberries, whilst many of the so-called Whites, are downy; or in being so spinose that one kind is called Henderson's Porcupine. Two kinds acquire when mature a powdery bloom on their fruit. The fruit varies in the thickness and veining of the skin, and, lastly, in shape, being spherical, oblong, oval, or obovate. (10/123. The fullest account of the ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication - Volume I • Charles Darwin

... account was overdrawn, lost all its advantages in her eyes by being of an Indian type. She could never quite persuade herself that her husband had not been walking about the streets of Paris with a handsome young squaw in skins and porcupine quills. ...
— A Canadian Heroine - A Novel, Volume 3 (of 3) • Mrs. Harry Coghill

... officer and his party returned on board; they shot 2 wambucks,* (* Presumably wombats.) a kangaroo, a porcupine, a swan and some birds—in the evening sent the second mate and some hands on shore to get mutton-birds, and eggs. On account of the great plenty of fresh provisions served no salt meat this day. I went and measured a base line from the south end of Storehouse Island due East ...
— The Logbooks of the Lady Nelson - With The Journal Of Her First Commander Lieutenant James Grant, R.N • Ida Lee

... them, to whom firmness & resolution are also extremely necessary. I myself again attended on this occasion, to the end of appeasing this little difference between the savages, & I effected their reconciliation, which was the reason that their chief protested to me afresh in calling me "Porcupine's Head,", which is the name that they have given me among them, that he would always come to me to trade, & that whereas I had seen him but with a hundred of his young men, he would bring with him 13 different ...
— Voyages of Peter Esprit Radisson • Peter Esprit Radisson

... at once stir and bustle from stem to stern of the Molly. The sturdy little craft was like the bristling porcupine, ready and impatient for action, when the masts of the East Indiaman slowly rose above the horizon. The privateer gave chase at once, and rapidly neared its prey. The guns of the Molly gave the signal for surrender. The British flag ...
— The Boy Patriot • Edward Sylvester Ellis

... learned the value of many of the herbs and shrubs that grew in her path, the bark and leaves of various trees, and many dyes she could extract, with which she stained the quills of the porcupine and the strips of the wood of which she made baskets and mats. The little creeping winter-green, [FN: Gualtheria procumbens,—Spice Winter-green.] with its scarlet berries, that grows on the dry flats, or sandy hills, which the Canadians call spice-berry, she showed ...
— Canadian Crusoes - A Tale of The Rice Lake Plains • Catharine Parr Traill

... and went to the cabin beside the lake that the two men occupied. From her box in front of the stove a lady porcupine looked up lazily and grunted. Kay raised the porcupine; in the box, of course. Susie was constitutionally indolent, but one does not handle porcupines, however smooth their quills ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930 • Various

... was first brought into public notice by the enormous speculations and the mad fever of 1845. The large spur of country which projects far out into the lake, having its base resting on a line drawn across from L'Anse Bay to Ontonagon, and the Porcupine Mountains for its spine, became the El Dorado of all copperdom of that day. In this year the first active operations were commenced at the Cliff Mine, just back of Eagle River harbor. Three years later, in 1848, ...
— Old Mackinaw - The Fortress of the Lakes and its Surroundings • W. P. Strickland

... no more what I was doing than if he had been brained. Now, Tom's head was a curiosity. His hair, which was remarkably thick, was like wire. Being cut rather short it stood out all over his scalp like the spines on a porcupine. It had been a favorite complaint of Tom's that he never could do anything to that head. I found no difficulty—I did something to it, though I blush to think what it was. I did something which I feared he might discover if he looked in the mirror, so I carelessly pulled out my watch, sprung ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce

... side of the little lake Porcupine Hill raises its spruce-covered head a thousand feet above the water. Proceeding up the Susan, we found that the river valley was enclosed by low ridges covered with spruce and a few scattering white birch and aspen trees. For the most part the banks of the river were steep and ...
— The Lure of the Labrador Wild • Dillon Wallace

... a hunting shirt of the soft and pliable deerskin, ornamented with long fringes and often dyed with bright vermilion. Pantaloons of the same material are also ornamented with fringes and porcupine's quills of various colors. Many a tranquil hour has been beguiled, in the long evenings and when the storm has beaten upon the hut, in fashioning these garments with artistic taste, learned of the Indians. A flexible cap, often of rich fur, ...
— Christopher Carson • John S. C. Abbott

... short trousers of blue cloth worked with colored porcupine quills, and a scarlet mantle glittering ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various

... at Courbevoie and rushed for the stage for Bezons. A crowd of fishermen crowded on top of the coach, holding their rods in their hands, giving the vehicle the appearance of a porcupine. ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant

... Nimmaylee is a porcupine with the spines coming; such an one having been brought to the camp just as a girl was ...
— The Euahlayi Tribe - A Study of Aboriginal Life in Australia • K. Langloh Parker

... to this," he cried, when everybody was tired of laughing, and everybody's head was stuck as full of paper quills as a porcupine's back. "Cousin Helen will be worn out. Run away, all of you, and don't come near this door again till the clock strikes four. Do you hear, ...
— What Katy Did • Susan Coolidge

... thereof a dragon, terrible to see; while in the foreground came that which was meant for a gallant ship, with a great flag aloft, but which, by reason of the forest of lances with which it was crowded, looked much more like a porcupine carrying a sign-post; and, at the roots of those lances, many little round o's, whereby was signified the heads of Amyas and his schoolfellows, who were about to slay that dragon, and rescue the beautiful princess who dwelt in that enchanted ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley

... young people and I were spending an afternoon upon a mountaintop, our dogs treed a porcupine. At my suggestion the young man climbed the tree—not a large one—to shake the animal down. I wished to see what the dogs would do with him, and what the "quill-pig" would do with the dogs. As the climber advanced ...
— The Wit of a Duck and Other Papers • John Burroughs

... chasing as much as we did, but when it came to broken ribs and sore heads, it was another matter. Then the porcupines bothered them. Our dogs would never learn to let them alone. If they were going through the woods where there were no signs of moose and found a porcupine, they'd kill it. The quills would get in their mouths and necks and chests, and we'd have to gag them and take bullet molds or nippers, or whatever we had, sometimes our jack-knives, and pull out the nasty things. If we got hold of the dogs at once, we could pull out ...
— Beautiful Joe • Marshall Saunders

... helpless state the men set at him in earnest, and a more barbarous finale I never did witness. Every man sent his spear, assage, or arrow, into his sides, until, completely exhausted, he sank like a porcupine covered with quills. The day's sport was now ended, so I went home to breakfast, leaving instructions that the heads should be cut off and sent to the king as a trophy of what the white man ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke

... delay. But they gave him some goods out of the store La Salle had sent with them, and he changed his mind and concluded to wait awhile. He carried the bones of one of his dead relations, dried and wrapped in skins gaily ornamented with porcupine-quill work; and it was his custom to lay these bones before the tribe and request that everybody blow smoke on them. Of the Frenchmen, however, he demanded hatchets, beads, and cloth. This cunning old Sioux wanted to get all he could before the party reached their villages, where the ...
— Heroes of the Middle West - The French • Mary Hartwell Catherwood

... the graceful Tecumseh. Unlike his companions, whose dress was exceedingly plain, he wore his jerkin or hunting coat, of the most beautifully soft and pliant deer skin, on which were visible a variety of tasteful devices exquisitely embroidered with the stained quills of the porcupine. A shirt of dazzling whiteness was carefully drawn over his expansive chest, and in his equally white shawl-turban was placed an ostrich feather, the prized gift of the lady of the mansion. On all occasions of festivity, and latterly in the field, ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson

... entry into Paris after his coronation an elaborate machine was contrived to delicately flatter his pretensions to Genoa and Milan, and appear in the royal procession. This consisted of an apparatus mounted on wheels, in the form of a terrace, on which was seen a porcupine, moving all his quills at once, and a young virgin, habited in Genoese fashion and throned on a seat of cloth-of-gold cramoisi. But unluckily the machine would not function, and after remaining immovable in one place, finally disappeared "in great mortification." ...
— Paris from the Earliest Period to the Present Day; Volume 1 • William Walton

... had spoiled the Crown Prince for work. Instead of conjugating a French verb, he made a sketch of the Scenic Railway. He drew the little car, and two heads looking over the edge, with a sort of porcupine effect of hairs ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... smile and string these heathen along, when you'd think they weren't waiting for anybody. A spear took off his fez yesterday. He never blinked—he's a jim-dandy at keeping cool; and when a hundred mounted heathens made a rush down on him the other day, spears sticking out like quills on a porcupine—2.5 on the shell-road the chargers were going—did he stir? Say, he watched 'em as if they were playing for his benefit. And sure enough, he was right. They parted either side of him when they were ten feet away, and there he was quite safe, a blessing in the storm, a ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... Mahon close under the walls of the castle, sailed away with his little squadron, consisting of the Chesterfield, Princess Louisa, Portland, and Dolphin, after having left all his marines, a detachment from Gibraltar, the whole crew of the Porcupine sloop, and the greater part of the Dolphin's, as a reinforcement to the fort, under the immediate direction and command of captain Scroop of the Dolphin, who, with great gallantry, offered himself for this severe duty, and bravely signalized himself during the whole ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... dressed in the costume of the country: most of them wore light-blue cloth capotes, girded tightly round them', by scarlet or crimson worsted belts. Some of them had blue and others scarlet cloth leggings, ornamented more or less with stained porcupine quills, coloured silk, or variegated beads; while some might be seen clad in the leathern coats of winter—deer-skin dressed like chamois leather, fringed all round with little tails, and ornamented much in the same way as those already described. The ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne

... the end of Cooper's Creek, and, steering a more north-easterly course, they journeyed for some time over great plains covered by dry grass-stalks or barren sandy ridges, on the steep sides of which grew scant tufts of porcupine grass; sometimes following the lines of a creek, or, again, travelling along the edge of a splendid lagoon that stretched its placid waters for miles ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various

... "stop the wheels of government" originated with "Peter Porcupine" (William Cobbett) and was on ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens

... aid of their slaves, opened a path across the woods to the first fall of the Rio Juagua; and on the 10th of September we made our excursion to the Cuchivano. On entering the crevice we recognised the proximity of tigers by a porcupine recently emboweled. For greater security the Indians returned to the farm, and brought back some dogs of a very small breed. We were assured that in the event of our meeting a jaguar in a narrow path he would spring on the dog rather than on a man. We did not proceed along ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt

... anatomic collection in Berlin, the whole surface of whose body was covered with a thick layer of epidermis, the skin being so thick as to form a covering like a coat-of-mail. According to Rayer the celebrated "porcupine-man" who exhibited himself in England in 1710 was an example of a rare form of ichthyosis. This man's body, except the face, the palms of the hands, and the soles of the feet, was covered with small excrescences in the form of prickles. These appendages were of a reddish-brown color, and so ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould

... first place, you could not see the houses among the rocks. The valley was just like a porcupine warren. No rock stood out alone: they were all jumbled up together, big and little, with pine trees growing on the tops of them and in between them, up from the earth that was twelve, twenty, or sometimes forty feet below. The whole hollow was a maze of narrow, winding tracks, between ...
— The La Chance Mine Mystery • Susan Carleton Jones

... full of wit And fancy, as each word is throng'd with it. Each line's a volume, and who reads would swear Whole libraries were in each character. Nor arrows in a quiver stuck, nor yet Lights in the starry skies are thicker set, Nor quills upon the armed porcupine, Than wit and fancy in ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle

... wilderness of rocks which emerged from the great Eocene sea. Not a lizard, horned toad, centipede, tarantula, chuckwalla, campamouche,* frog, tree-toad, turtle or snake was to be found on the long stretching areas of its lifeless shores. Not a chipmunk, prairie-dog, coyote, rat, mouse, porcupine, fox, bear, mountain-lion, badger, deer, antelope or other four-footed creature ran over its new-born surfaces. The sun shone unhindered; the rain beat with pitiless fury; the winds swept unhampered; the snows piled up undeterred ...
— The Grand Canyon of Arizona: How to See It, • George Wharton James

... came when Leclere gathered his dogs together and floated down in a bateau to Forty Mile, and on to the Porcupine, where he took a commission from the P. C. Company, and went exploring for the better part of a year. After that he poled up the Koyokuk to deserted Arctic City, and later came drifting back, from camp to camp, along the Yukon. And during the long months Batard was well lessoned. ...
— The Faith of Men • Jack London

... Family Robinson.' A man feels a strange desire for some sort of vegetable milk, and crash comes down some unexpected cocoa-nut from some undiscovered monkey. A literary man feels inclined to pen a sonnet, and at once an officious porcupine rushes out of a thicket and shoots out one ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton

... 'twere a kind of Vegetable growing on an Animal, which growing, they say, remains a long while after the Animal is dead, and therefore should like other Vegetables have a pith; and secondly, because Horns and Feathers, and Porcupine's Quils, and Cats Bristles, and the long hairs of Horses, which come very neer the nature of a mans hair, seem all of them to have a kind of pith, and some of them to be porous, yet I think it not (in these cases, where we have such helps for the sense as the Microscope affords) safe concluding ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke

... I'd like to know her. She's a woman a man could make a friend of, I do believe," and Dr. Eben jumped into bed, and was fast asleep in five minutes, and dreamed that Hetty came towards him, dressed like an Indian, with her brown curls stuck full of painted porcupine quills, and a tomahawk brandished in ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Helen Jackson

... Louse. Everywhere—on the walls, over windows and doors, and at all points where there is room to place them—appear escutcheons of arms, cognizances, and crests, emblazoned in their proper colors, and illuminating the ancient quadrangle with their splendor. One of these devices is a large image of a porcupine on an heraldic wreath, being the crest of the Lords de Lisle. But especially is the cognizance of the Bear and Ragged Staff repeated over and over, and over again and again, in a great variety of attitudes, at full-length and half-length, in paint and in oaken ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various

... some talk about a picnic party to the top of Porcupine Mountain, was there not?" inquired Electra, ...
— Victor's Triumph - Sequel to A Beautiful Fiend • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... dreary Lena. Before reaching Circle City the Yukon attains its most northerly point and then descends in a south-easterly direction for the remainder of its course. At the bend it is joined by the Porcupine River; and here is Fort Yukon, once an important trading coast of the Hudson Bay Company, but now an overgrown clearing in the forest, of which a few miserable Indians in grimy tents disputed the possession with dense clouds of mosquitoes. But even the appearance of Circle City,[74] ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt

... heed—the scream of the rabbit when the big gray cat leaps on him from behind a bush; the scolding of the red squirrel, disturbed and angry at the sight, and fearful that he may be the next victim; the bark of the fox; the rasping of the porcupine's teeth; and oftenest of all the pleasant rustling and whispering of the trees, for by this time the sun and the south wind had come back and done their work, and the voice of the leaves was heard in the ...
— Forest Neighbors - Life Stories of Wild Animals • William Davenport Hulbert

... able to develop used organs or repress disused organs or faculties without the assistance of a relatively weak ally? Selection evolved the remarkable protective coverings of the armadillo, turtle, crocodile, porcupine, hedgehog, &c.; it formed alike the rose and its thorn, the nut and its shell; it developed the peacock's tail and the deer's antlers, the protective mimicry of various insects and butterflies, and the wonderful instincts of the white ants; ...
— Are the Effects of Use and Disuse Inherited? - An Examination of the View Held by Spencer and Darwin • William Platt Ball

... porcupine its quills, the majestic woman followed the spry figure of the captain. Her first glance over the old-fashioned, homelike room ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper

... your so great generosity. See, then!" And with a dramatic gesture he plunged his hand down among the wriggling snakes, and groping among them in a manner that made every hair on Dick's head stand up till he felt like a porcupine, he drew forth a small bundle, and tossed it ...
— A Rip Van Winkle Of The Kalahari - Seven Tales of South-West Africa • Frederick Cornell

... I were a porcupine, And wore a peacock's tail; To-morrow, if the moon but shine, Perchance I'll be a whale. Then let me, like the cauliflower, Be merry while I may, And, ere there comes a sunny hour To cloud my ...
— A Nonsense Anthology • Collected by Carolyn Wells

... occasions, each courtier takes his meal alone in his solitary cell on a small square table crowded with bowls of rice and various stews; without table-linen or napkins, without knife, fork, or spoon; a pair of small sticks, or the quills of a porcupine, are the only substitutes for these convenient articles: placing the bowl under his chin, with these he throws the rice into his mouth and takes up the pieces of meat in his soup or stews. Having finished his lonely meal, he ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow

... wearing from the waist down a gown of palm leaves. The face was covered by a mask of vegetable fibre which allowed its owner to see and not be seen. Upon the head was worn a cap of wax in which were stuck a great number of arrows, so that it looked just like the back of a disturbed porcupine. ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor

... factor in many injuries and operations. The phenomena of fear probably are exhibited only by animals whose natural defense is nerve-muscular. The skunk, the porcupine, the turtle, have little or no fear. Fear is born of the innumerable injuries which have been inflicted in the course of evolution. Fear, like trauma, may cause physiologic exhaustion of and morphologic changes in the brain-cells. The representation ...
— The Origin and Nature of Emotions • George W. Crile

... was disclosed. A little white slave from the seraglio of this embryo tyrant had flown the cage! No wonder she was watched, little surprise that she did not care to eat. He straightened himself, the hair on his round head like porcupine quills. ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker

... had never been found wanting in courage. Scarcely had he disappeared when Marmion came in sight, also following the trail. He ran with his nose close to the ground, the hair on his back standing straight up like the quills on a porcupine, and his whole appearance indicating great ...
— Frank Among The Rancheros • Harry Castlemon

... Dr. Priestley met in due course with a cruel attack upon him by William Cobbett, known under the pen-name of Peter Porcupine, an Englishman, who after arrival in this country enjoyed a rather prosperous life by formulating scurrilous literature—attacks upon men of prominence, stars shining brightly ...
— Priestley in America - 1794-1804 • Edgar F. Smith

... back, and he saw a great big porcupine, or hedgehog—you know, those animals like a big gray rabbit, only their fur is the stickery-prickery kind, like needles, and the quills come out and stick in anybody who bites a hedgehog. So I hope ...
— Uncle Wiggily's Adventures • Howard R. Garis

... all round the walls harness and saddles symmetrically arranged. The first set of double harness which he shows us is seldom used, and is made out of black leather, richly embroidered in designs of the Royal Arms, &c., with split porcupine quills, the work of some Tyrolese artists who visited this country many years ago. Next to the porcupine harness hangs a set of Russian leather sledge harness, beautifully mounted with silver, and as soft as a kid glove. High over the saddles (the ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... open window high up in the log wall acrost from the door, and old Kate jumps up onto the sill from the outside. He was one fierce object, let me tell you; weighing about thirty pounds, all muscle, with one ear gone, and an eye missing that a porcupine quill got into, and a lot of fresh new battle scars. We all got a good look at him while he crouched there for a second, purring like a twelve-cylinder car and twitching his whiskers at us in a lazy way, like he wanted ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson

... cactus—had me up for dinner. Well, I know you don't, but it's true. Her father and I hit it off just like that. He's a character, that old boy. Ever meet him? No? And Miss Sharp told me something about herself that explains her porcupine pose. That poor child was engaged to a chap who was killed in the Spanish-American war, ...
— Emma McChesney & Co. • Edna Ferber

... accident I met him out there in the timber. I delivered the telegram you sent him. After he had read it I showed him mine. He scribbled something on a bit of paper, folded it, and pinned it with a porcupine quill. I've been mighty curious, but I haven't pulled out that quill. ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood

... that flows, Only a stretch of cactus beds, and the wild, sweet prairie rose; Never a habitation, save where in the far south-west A solitary tepee lifts its solitary crest, Where Neykia in the doorway, crouched in the red sunshine, Broiders her buckskin mantle with the quills of the porcupine. ...
— Flint and Feather • E. Pauline Johnson

... first we took them to be Yankees moving about with lights. Whenever we could get a shot we would blaze away. At last one got up very close, and passed right between Tom and I. I don't think I was ever more scared in my life. My hair stood on end like the quills of the fretful porcupine; I could not imagine what on earth it was. I took it to be some hellish machination of a Yankee trick. I did not know whether to run or stand, until I heard Tom laugh and say, "Well, well, that's a ...
— "Co. Aytch" - Maury Grays, First Tennessee Regiment - or, A Side Show of the Big Show • Sam R. Watkins

... the fat afterwards, and strain the gravy through a sieve into a stewpan. Add a glass of white wine, a little lemon pickle and caper liquor, and a spoonful of mushroom ketchup, and thicken the gravy with a bit of butter rolled in flour. Lay the porcupine on a dish, and pour the sauce over it. Have ready prepared a thin forcemeat, made of the crumb of a penny loaf, half a pound of beef suet shred fine, the yolks of four eggs, and a few oysters chopped. Mix these together, ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton

... long-handled axe of the primitive woods by the door, three and a half feet long,—for my new black-ash rule was in constant use,—and a large, shaggy dog, whose nose, report said, was full of porcupine quills. I can testify that he looked very sober. This is the usual fortune of pioneer dogs, for they have to face the brunt of the battle for their race, and act the part of Arnold Winkelried without intending it. If he should invite one of his town friends up this way, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various

... traversing a region broken by many streams, detached mountain spurs and ranges of lofty elevation. Black Butte, as it is known to-day, in Dawson County, Montana, was left on the left, after which they rode through the valley of Little Porcupine Creek to the Yellowstone, which was crossed with considerable difficulty. Turning more to the east, they passed the rough, precipitous section, the scene many years afterward of the appalling Custer massacre, and now an immense Indian reservation, and, entering ...
— Deerfoot in The Mountains • Edward S. Ellis

... has many enemies, eager to meet him and eat him. But, when they see this little fish puff out his sides like a balloon, and when pointed spines rise up all over the balloon, they think better of it! They leave him alone; and the Porcupine-fish goes back to his usual shape, the spines lying flat until wanted again. He is sometimes called the Sea-hedgehog or Urchin-fish, and well ...
— Within the Deep - Cassell's "Eyes And No Eyes" Series, Book VIII. • R. Cadwallader Smith

... around, got on his boots, and went out into the field with me. It was now light, and he had no sooner bent down over it than he pronounced it to be a hedgehog fast enough, or rather a Canada porcupine. Its weight was over thirty pounds, and some of the quills on its back were four or five inches in length, with needle-like, finely ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens

... the opposition to Rush became furious when he boldly declared that the fever was not an importation from abroad, as was popularly believed, but had been generated by the filthy condition of the city during the early part of the summer. Some time after the fever had subsided, a paper called "Peter Porcupine's Gazette," edited by William Cobbett, made a series of outrageous attacks upon Dr. Rush and his treatment of the fever. This exhausted the forbearance of the doctor, and he instituted a suit against Cobbett, in which he was successful, ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.

... under grave suspicion; in the first place, she was traveling alone, in the second place, she was an American. At table there was generally a desultory conversation, and many a barb of malice Elsa shot from her bow. Figuratively, the colonel walked about like a porcupine, bristling with arrows instead of quills. Elsa could have shouted at times, for the old war-dog was perfectly oblivious. There was, besides, the inevitable German tourist, who shelled with questions every man who ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath

... attended these treatments taking turns holding the bowl of sulphur salve and encouraging the restive Kobuk to be a good dog and take his medicine. Now it was with the utmost pity and concern that they beheld him slinking to his corner in the store, for he had been out on a porcupine hunt and his nose, his entire head was literally bristling ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby

... own mind. With man and the domestic animals, certain peculiarities have appeared in an individual, at rare intervals, or only once or twice in the history of the world, but have reappeared in several of the children and grandchildren. Thus Lambert, "the porcupine-man," whose skin was thickly covered with warty projections, which were periodically moulted, had all his six children and two grandsons similarly affected.[5] The face and body being covered with long hair, accompanied by deficient teeth (to which I shall hereafter refer), ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin

... good idea! You can become a savage and resuscitate the last Mohican of Fenimore Cooper. I already see you, with a blue turtle on your breast, eagle's feathers in your scalp, and moccasins worked with porcupine quills. You will be very handsome; with your sad air you will look as if you were weeping over your dead race. If I had not been away for four years, I would accompany you, but I was in such a hurry to put my ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin

... air was chill enough. Breakfast was soon cooked and their camp put to rights. Then, taking their fishing-rods again, they set forth to patrol the forest. The pup was tied in the tent, lest he should get into trouble with a porcupine or some other creature of the forest, and so make them ...
— The Young Wireless Operator—As a Fire Patrol - The Story of a Young Wireless Amateur Who Made Good as a Fire Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss

... crazily into the exploding debris, imagining nineteen other ships suddenly disintegrating under the rocket guns of nineteen different nations. He saw Earth, like a giant porcupine, flicking thousands of atom tipped missiles into space from hundreds of submarines and secret bases—the war power of the great nations, designed for the ruin of each other, united ...
— Alien Offer • Al Sevcik

... it is stupid, it will fail: but I will have none of your damned cutting and slashing. If you please, you may publish anonymously; it will perhaps be better; but I will battle my way against them all, like a porcupine. ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore

... dinner, Mr. Durions Sun much displeased that he could not dine with Cap Lewis and my Self- the number of Soues present is about 70 men- Dressed in Buffalow roabes a fiew fusees, Bows and arrows, and verry much deckerated with porcupine quills, a Society of which only four remains is present, this Society has made a vow never to giv back let what will happen, out of 22 only 4 remains, those are Stout likely men who Stay by them Selves, ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al

... Porcupine" ("Sylvie and Bruno, Concluded," page 388), is exactly my conception of it. I expect this will be one of the most effective pictures in the book. The faces of the ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood

... rather awful. I shouldn't have dreamed that trams could look so big, or bridges so narrow, except in nightmares. And—and you can't make your horn heard much, can you, over the noise on the stones? Oh, there was a close shave with that wagon, wasn't it? I felt bristling like a fretful porcupine—oh, but a stark, ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson

... atarism, are in contradiction to his principles. Most of the known instances of the origination of permanent varieties were not the result of infinitesimal improvements, but were sudden and complete at once. The Japan peacocks, the short-legged sheep, the porcupine man and his family, and the six-fingered men, were not at all the results of a slow process of evolution; on the contrary, they were born so, complete at once, in utter contradiction of ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson

... they might be. I don't know much about them," said Peter, rubbing his chin. "Rough as a porcupine, aren't I? You must have thought me a savage when you found me stuck upside-down in that tree like a sloth. What DID ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon

... players, hard drinkers, gathered about the table and bent over to examine the little shoe. It was an Indian moccasin, cut after the fashion of the Abenakis, from the skin of the wild buck, fashioned large and full for the spread of the foot, covered deep with the stained quills of the porcupine, and dotted here and there with the precious beads which, to the maker, had more worth than any gold. A little flap came up for cover to the ankle, and a thong fell from its upper edge. It was the ancient foot-covering of the red race ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough

... The Porcupine Ant-eaters are found in most parts of the country, and are esteemed very good eating; they burrow in the earth, and have a tongue of remarkable length, which they put out of their mouth, and the ants immediately crowd upon it, as if ...
— The Present Picture of New South Wales (1811) • David Dickinson Mann

... of Snakes to give him admittance into their cave. They were prevailed upon, and let him in accordingly; but were so annoyed with his sharp prickly quills that they soon repented of their easy compliance, and entreated the Porcupine to withdraw, and leave them their hole to themselves. "No," says he, "let them quit the place that don't like it; for my part, I am well enough ...
— Aesop's Fables - A New Revised Version From Original Sources • Aesop

... night when he had gone into the mystery-room at the Chateau, David and Father Roland clasped hands in a final farewell at White Porcupine House, on the Cochrane River, 270 miles from God's Lake. It was something more than a hand-shake. The Missioner made no effort to speak in these last moments. His team was ready for the return drive and he had drawn his travelling hood close about his face. In his own heart ...
— The Courage of Marge O'Doone • James Oliver Curwood

... right fork, his quick ears caught the sound of gnawing teeth. He stalked the quarry and found it to be a porcupine, standing upright against a tree and trying his teeth on the bark. One Eye approached carefully but hopelessly. He knew the breed, though he had never met it so far north before; and never in his long life had porcupine served him for ...
— White Fang • Jack London

... that. "Don't judge, the taste of a baked porcupine by his quills," she said. "Grimes is a very rough and unpleasant man; but he gets there. He is one of the most successful directors Mr. Hammond has ...
— Ruth Fielding in Moving Pictures - Or Helping The Dormitory Fund • Alice Emerson

... has been twice let out within this twelvemonth. Our landlord has a stirring wife, a hopeful son, and a daughter, the belle of the village; not so pretty as the fair nymph of the shoe-shop, and far less elegant, but ten times as fine; all curl-papers in the morning, like a porcupine, all curls in the afternoon, like a poodle, with more flounces than curl-papers, and more lovers than curls. Miss Phoebe is fitter for town than country; and to do her justice, she has a consciousness of that fitness, and turns her steps ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford

... remarkable of them all was Mount Helmer Hanssen; its top was as round as the bottom of a bowl, and covered by an extraordinary ice-sheet, which was so broken up and disturbed that the blocks of ice bristled in every direction like the quills of a porcupine. It glittered and burned in the sunlight — a glorious spectacle. There could only be one such mountain in the world, and as a landmark it was priceless. We knew that we could not mistake that, however the surroundings might ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen

... imagined by Dore; and inland, the towns of the upper ribera floating in an emerald lake of orchard, the distant mountains taking on a violet hue from the setting sun that was creeping like a bristly porcupine of gold into the hot vapors ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... recollect the last day there was company, and Master Herbert came to the top of the stairs, and you was looking at the organ's lamp, I said, 'Dear! Master Herbert's hair's as rough as a porcupine's;' and you said directly, ma'am, if you recollect, 'I wish you would make that boy's hair fit to be seen;' those was your very words, ma'am, and I ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth

... separated early in the voyage from the main body, under the pilotage of the veteran Diniz Diaz, had also made their way to C. Verde, had fought with the natives in some desperate skirmishes—one knight had his "shield stuck as full with arrows as the porcupine with quills," and had turned back in the face of the same discouragements as the rest; and so would have ended the whole of this great enterprise but for the dauntless energy of one captain and ...
— Prince Henry the Navigator, the Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D. • C. Raymond Beazley

... sit beside my grandmother and work like this. Yes, Chief Totantora taught me to shoot and paddle a canoe, and to do many other things out-of-doors. But my grandmother was the head woman of our tribe, and her beadwork and dyed porcupine-quill work was the finest you ever saw, Ruth Fielding. I was sorry to leave my war-bag with Dakota Joe. It had in it many keepsakes my grandmother gave me before she passed to ...
— Ruth Fielding in the Great Northwest - Or, The Indian Girl Star of the Movies • Alice B. Emerson

... palm-oil plentifully both internally and externally, so that their relaxed flesh is bloated like blubber. Both sexes shave their heads, and adorn their noses and lower lips with rings, while they penetrate their ears with porcupine quills or sticks. They neither sell nor buy each other, though they acquire children of both sexes from other tribes, and adopt them into their own, or dispose of them if not suitable. Their avails of work are ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer

... a brand from the fire, he rapped sharply on the trunk. Then slowly what had appeared to be a portion of the hole began to disintegrate, and in a moment a drowsy porcupine climbed rattling ...
— Blazed Trail Stories - and Stories of the Wild Life • Stewart Edward White

... Meanwhile, earthworks are being constructed on all the high hills and commanding positions; strong abatis are made of the forest-trees, and every thing done that can give the city an air of security, and the country round about the appearance of a bristling porcupine. Should this influx of troops continue, we shall be compelled to advance our lines for very room on which to station them. We have some intimations that our advance to this point to-day is ...
— Three Years in the Federal Cavalry • Willard Glazier

... the right eye, where the ends are brought up short as if they were rooted near there. I could say I was not bald. This gave me some satisfaction, but I never boasted of it in public. There was a streak of porcupine in our family. This accounted for the trod-grass appearance of my head, even when prepared carefully for public appearance. It was at its best when it looked like a meadow of tall timothy that had been walked over by the cows on a wet day. ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent

... jauntily on black and glossy curls that hung about the brawny neck and shoulders. The buckskin coat, heavily fringed as to the short cape and the shorter skirt, was thickly covered with Indian embroidery of bead and porcupine quill; so, too, were the fringed trousers and leggings; so, too, the moccasins, soled with thick, yet pliant hide. Keen black eyes shone from beneath heavy black brows, just sprinkled, as were the thick moustache ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King

... dress him in an Indian shirt ornamented with feathers and beads and bits of porcupine quill. They put leggins on his legs and moccasins on his feet, and, seating him upon a bear-skin, gave him flint and steel to strike a light with; then a pouch, a tomahawk, some tobacco, and a long pipe. Then the chiefs seated themselves beside him, and smoked ...
— Po-No-Kah - An Indian Tale of Long Ago • Mary Mapes Dodge

... came out. His dress was rather singular; his black curling hair was parted in the middle of his head, and fell below his shoulders; he wore a tight frock of smoked deerskin, very gayly ornamented with figures worked in dyed porcupine quills. His moccasins and leggings were also gaudily adorned in the same manner; and the latter had in addition a line of long fringes, reaching down the seams. The small frame of Richard, for by this name Henry made him known to us, was in the highest degree athletic and vigorous. ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.

... these materials for Satanic history the only prosaic and faithful chronicles which the bibliothecal blanket afforded. Equally wonderful, and equally indisputable, was the account of "a young lady, the daughter of a duke, with three legs and the face of a porcupine." Nor less so "The Awful Judgment of God upon Swearers, as exemplified in the case of John Stiles, who Dropped down dead after swearing a Great Oath; and on stripping the unhappy man they found 'Swear not at all' written on ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... pointed to the page. "'The Warriers are Verry much deckerated with Paint Porcupine quils and feathers, large leagins and mockersons, all with buffalow robes of Different Colors, the Squars wore Peticoats and a White Buffalow roabe with the black hare turned back over their necks and Sholders.' I'll say they had plenty to do, writing and hunting and making speeches. ...
— The Young Alaskans on the Missouri • Emerson Hough

... mean, My wife,—but, I protest, without desert,— Hath oftentimes upbraided me withal; To her will we to dinner.—Get you home And fetch the chain: by this I know 'tis made: Bring it, I pray you, to the Porcupine; For there's the house; that chain will I bestow,— Be it for nothing but to spite my wife,—- Upon mine hostess there: good sir, make haste: Since mine own doors refuse to entertain me, I'll knock elsewhere, to see ...
— The Comedy of Errors • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]

... slowly, but with every tired muscle astrain, a fat porcupine was mounting the hill; its claws digging frantically for foothold among the slippery stones. It seemed to flow, rather than to run. And as it hurried on, it chuckled and scolded, like ...
— Further Adventures of Lad • Albert Payson Terhune

... saw a fat porcupine, weighing full twenty-five pounds and deliberately walking up the slope near by, as if going to its den in the rocks, but, though we yelled and shouted, it scorned to notice us and indifferently went its way. A horned owl now and then hooted and bade us begone, while a badger came out from his ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James

... ridicule of contemporary wits and poets. He was, at least in his literary career, jealous, envious, irritable, vain, pedantic and bombastical, petulant and quarrelsome,—ever on the watch for an affront, and always in the attitude of a fretful porcupine with a quill pointed in every direction against real or supposititious enemies. In such a state of mental alarm and physical vaporing did he live, that he seems to have proclaimed a promiscuous ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various

... shirt of well-dressed and pliant buckskin, ornamented with long fringes. The vanity of dress, if it may be so called, followed him into regions where no eye but his own could see its beauties. His pantaloons were also made of buckskin decorated with variously-colored porcupine quills and with long fringes down the outside of the leg. Moccasins, often quite gorgeously embroidered, fitted closely to his feet. A very flexible hat or cap covered his head, generally of felt, obtained from some Indian trader. There was suspended over his left shoulder, so as to hang beneath ...
— Daniel Boone - The Pioneer of Kentucky • John S. C. Abbott

... been heckling poor Robin as usual," she said, stroking her father's cheek. "Heckling poor Robin and getting your hair on end like a fretful porcupine. I'll never be able to make you into a nice, sweet, ...
— Mary Gray • Katharine Tynan

... management of military affairs inheres in the military council and chief. The military council is composed of all the able-bodied men of the tribe; the military chief is chosen by the council from the Porcupine gens. Each gentile chief is responsible for the military training of the youth under his authority. There are usually one or more potential military chiefs, who are the close companions and assistants of the chief in time of war and, in case of the death of the chief, take ...
— Sex and Society • William I. Thomas

... house, up the main entrance, and into the dry, dark chamber. When all the tender bark was eaten off, the bare stick would be carried away and deposited on the dam. It was an easy life; and the beavers grew fat while all the rest of the wild kindreds, save the porcupine and the bear, were growing lean with famine. There was absolutely nothing to do but eat, sleep and take such exercise as they would by swimming hither and thither at terrific speed beneath the silver ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts

... That functionary quickly appeared. She was short of stature, large of bulk, red of face, fluent of speech, hasty of temper—au reste, she was a good cook and faithful servant. She bobbed to Hilda on entering, and, closing the door, stood with folded arms and belligerent aspect, like a porcupine armed for defense on the ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille

... points!" snapped Miriam. "You will make a regular porcupine of her if you keep on. I wish Mr. Bannister had given ...
— The Girl at Cobhurst • Frank Richard Stockton

... of granulated sugar. In three days they had wallowed thirty miles up Minnow Creek and across the series of low divides that separate the several creeks flowing south into Siwash River; and now they were breasting the big divide, past the Bald Buttes, where the way would lead them down Porcupine Creek to the middle reaches of Milk River. Higher up Milk River, it was fairly rumored, were deposits of copper. And this was their goal—a hill of pure copper, half a mile to the right and up the first creek after Milk River issued ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London

... in which Andy pointed, a fat porcupine was discovered high up in a spruce tree feeding upon ...
— Troop One of the Labrador • Dillon Wallace

... entertainment among the young men of the family: the Oxonian, particularly, takes a mischievous pleasure now and then in slyly rubbing the old man against the grain, and then smoothing him down again; for the old fellow is as ready to bristle up his back as a porcupine. He rides a venerable hunter called Pepper, which is a counterpart of himself, a heady, cross-grained animal, that frets the flesh off its bones; bites, kicks, and plays all manner of villanous tricks. ...
— Bracebridge Hall • Washington Irving

... the most of these in various parts of her body, for she did her best to shield the young one; but the latter received a few notwithstanding. After the first discharge the old one's sides ran down with blood, and in a short time she bristled all over with spears like a monstrous porcupine. She soon seemed to give up all thought of defending her young, and began to flee for her life, so that the calf was quickly killed; but no sooner did the mother observe this, than all fear forsook her; she stopped in her career, turned round, and, with a shriek of rage, charged ...
— Hunting the Lions • R.M. Ballantyne

... the print. After a little dickering he sold me bow, arrows, quiver, and all for a couple of dollars. I then ripped open the print and found my first suspicions confirmed; for, underneath, the quiver was of buckskin, beautifully embroidered with red feathers and porcupine {80} quills of deep red and turquoise blue. The Indian was as much puzzled by my preference for the quill work as I was by his for the ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America

... animal, and apparently a very helpless one, with which the cougar occasionally quarrels, but often with ill success—this is the Canada porcupine. Whether the cougar ever succeeds in killing one of these creatures is not known, but that it attacks them is beyond question, and its own death is often the result. The quills of the Canada porcupine ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid

... much care of their dress and horse equipments; they dash furiously past on wild steeds, astride of the high-pommelled saddles. A fancifully coloured cover, worked with beads or porcupine quills, making a flashy, striking appearance, extended from withers to rump of the horse, while the riders evinced an admirable daring, worthy of Amazons. Their dresses were made of buckskin, high at the neck, with short sleeves, or rather none at all, fitting loosely, ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman

... the machine is occupied. The slivers are guided by the sliver guides on to an endless cloth or "feed sheet" which, in turn, conveys them continuously between the feed rollers. The feed apparatus in such machines is invariably of the roller type, and sometimes it involves what is known as a "porcupine" roller. It will be understood that the feeding of level slivers is a different problem from that which necessitates the feeding ...
— The Jute Industry: From Seed to Finished Cloth • T. Woodhouse and P. Kilgour

... woods grew thicker and darker, the ground more wet and swampy, and I found, as many grown people had found before me, that there was rather hard traveling in a journey after, riches. Suddenly I met in my way a large porcupine, who made himself still larger when he saw me, as a cross cat raises its back and makes tails at a dog. Fearing that he would shoot his sharp quills at me, I ran from him as fast as my tired feet would ...
— McGuffey's Fourth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey

... saying a grace, and then, if only by a word,—thanking God for what they received. But those that used the paint managed to arrange their persons in the most abomonable and ghastly manner. With the feathers, they mix porcupine quills and knit the whole into their hair—then daub, their head with a species of white clay that is to be found in their country. They wear no clothing except what they call loin-cloth or breach-cloth, and when they, go on the war-path, just ...
— Two months in the camp of Big Bear • Theresa Gowanlock and Theresa Delaney

... from my Dinkie. I came across it this morning, by accident. It was in my sewing-basket, the basket made of birch-bark and stained porcupine quills and lined with doe-skin, which I'd once bought from a Reservation squaw in Buckhorn with a tiny papoose on her back. Duncan had upbraided me for passing out my last five-dollar bill to that hungry Nitchie, but ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer

... know it was the handsomest of the kind I had ever seen. On the front of the trousers was the finest of bead work, representing horses, Indians, buffalo, deer and various other animals; and on the coat the same, except they were worked with beads and porcupine quills. ...
— Thirty-One Years on the Plains and In the Mountains • William F. Drannan

... field. In the heat of the action, seventy men, who held the bridle of her camel, were successively killed or wounded; and the cage or litter, in which she sat, was stuck with javelins and darts like the quills of a porcupine. The venerable captive sustained with firmness the reproaches of the conqueror, and was speedily dismissed to her proper station at the tomb of Mahomet, with the respect and tenderness that was still due to the widow of the apostle. [1737] After this victory, which was styled the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon

... the nets, we found that five deer and two pigs had been killed. Pat had shot a boar and a porcupine, the latter with No. 4 shot. H. accounted for a deer, and I got my buck and the boar which I had wounded in the chest; Mehrman Singh had followed him up and tracked him to the river, where he took refuge among some long swamp reeds. Replying to his call, we ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis

... of frenzy for the nerve-reviver, and applied it to the trembling lady's nostrils; whereupon that delicately-constituted specimen of the genus feminine uttered a stentorian shriek and flounced about the room like an irate porcupine, greatly to the terror of Alice, who had never witnessed such a scene before. But neither the brilliant son nor jewel daughters seemed in the least alarmed, and in a few moments the mother regained possession of ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton

... gone before Thompson finished his job at Porcupine Lake, some ninety-odd miles, as the crow flies, north of Fort Pachugan. The Porcupine was a marshy stretch of water, the home of muskrat and beaver, a paradise for waterfowl when the heavy hand of winter was lifted, a sheet of ice now, a white oval in the dusky green of the forest. Here the ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... must not always look to the strong for strength. And yet this little white porcupine is strength itself, for see how much damage he has wrought us. Also consider his eyes that appear to pierce everything. Jana himself might fear those eyes. Well, time that grinds the rocks will tell ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard

... ten, a body wound, five, and a scratch, one, that's sixteen, with ten more for finding it—twenty-six points. Sam followed with two body wounds and two scratches—twelve points, and Yan one body wound and five scratches—ten points. The Deer looked like an old Porcupine when they came up to it, and Guy, bursting with triumph, looked like a ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton

... hurled at him took a dreaded forward step toward Gale, and Druel, in the line of fire, brought his knees up and his head down till he curled like a porcupine. Gale, game as he undoubtedly was, cornered, felt perhaps recollections of Calabasas and close quarters with the brown eyes and the burning face. What they might mean in this little room, which de Spain was crossing step by step, was food ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman

... welcome, the sincerity of heart in which your host stands before you, is the means whereby the traveller first learns to be dissatisfied. He has come out with his own judgment of things raying from him in all directions—a very porcupine of pre-conception. He is not merely persuaded that the colonies are loyal but he is certain they are loyal after his own conceptions ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray

... Just then the porcupine, the Chief of the animals, passed by the bear tree. Mother Bear saw him. She put her head out the bear-tree window and called to him. He came and sat under the bear-tree window, and listened to Mother Bear's story of her fears ...
— Stories the Iroquois Tell Their Children • Mabel Powers

... great Kangaroo, who had a new baby in her pouch. Tirrip knew it was the Wild Boar's fault, so she knocked him over with one powerful blow and then ran away to escape Chipo's sharp tusks. In the chase that followed a giant porcupine stuck fifty sharp quills into the Boar and a chimpanzee in a tree threw a cocoanut at the porcupine that jammed ...
— The Magic of Oz • L. Frank Baum

... margin, or border, of about an inch wide, which had been slit into innumerable small fringes, giving them an air of elegance and lightness: a garter of leather, curiously wrought, with the stained quills of the porcupine, encircled each leg, immediately under the knee, where it was tied in a bow, and then suffered to hang pendant half way down the limb; to the fringes of the leggings, moreover, were attached numerous dark-coloured ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson



Words linked to "Porcupine" :   rodent, quill, Canada porcupine, long-tailed porcupine, brush-tailed porcupine, New World porcupine, porcupine ball, hedgehog, porcupine provision, Old World porcupine, porcupine fish



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