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Porcupine   /pˈɔrkjəpˌaɪn/   Listen
Porcupine

noun
1.
Relatively large rodents with sharp erectile bristles mingled with the fur.  Synonym: hedgehog.



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"Porcupine" Quotes from Famous Books



... over my parlour floor, a slight tap drew me to the door. On opening it I perceived the old squaw, who immediately slipped into my hand a set of beautifully-embroidered bark trays, fitting one within the other, and exhibiting the very best sample of the porcupine quill-work. While I stood wondering what this might mean, the good old creature fell upon my neck, and kissing me, exclaimed, "You remember old squaw—make her comfortable! Old squaw no forget you. Keep them for ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie

... produced not a few political pamphlets in the strictest sense of the term, the infinitely greater part of his work is comprised during his earlier days in the volumes of Peter Porcupine's Gazette, during his later in those of the Weekly Register. This latter, however, he himself for a time actually entitled The Weekly Political Pamphlet, while he alluded to it under that name even at other times; and his whole work was imbued even more ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury

... feat the blazon of a porcupine, with this inscription, Unus agminis vires habet—"One man has the ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various

... friendship; harmony followed, and war and bloodshed were thought of no more. It was happy for us that our white faces and calm behaviour produced the effect it did on these people; in another minute our bodies would have been as full of arrows as a porcupine's is full of quills. 'I thought you were children of heaven fallen from the skies,' said the chief, in ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne

... I in my innocence did deem The words you uttered in the last campaign Did true portray the situation here, But now I fear they were but party gush. But, ah! "The pen is mightier than the sword." These venomed quills must be from porcupine; For deeper do they bore, as I reflect That I invited all their smarting wounds. I sought to give their idol Worcester but His proper place by "damning with faint praise;" And now they prod me as the muleteer Doth goad his ...
— 'A Comedy of Errors' in Seven Acts • Spokeshave (AKA Old Fogy)

... whips, the Danes took up their bows. The arrows fell thickly round St. Edmund, piercing him in every part, until, as the old book says, he was as covered with arrows as a porcupine with quills. ...
— Stories of the Saints by Candle-Light • Vera C. Barclay

... deerskin by a number of his tribesmen, a bedridden old savage, paralyzed and helpless, squalid as the rest in his attire, and distinguished only by a red fillet, inwrought with the dyed quills of the Canada porcupine, encircling his lank black hair. They placed him on the ground at Cartier's feet and made signs of welcome for him, while he pointed feebly to his powerless limbs, and implored the healing touch from the hand of the French chief. Cartier complied, ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.

... arch Armadillo Who built him a hut 'neath a willow; He hadn't a bed So he rested his head On a young Porcupine for a pillow. ...
— The Jingle Book • Carolyn Wells

... Another strange specimen in the novel collection is a portion of the 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 ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 360, November 25, 1882 • Various

... 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 ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll, Volume I • Robert Green Ingersoll

... 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

... is lively; if 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

... body was clothed in the garment called by the Hodenosaunee gakaah, a long tunic of deerskin tanned beautifully, descending to the knees, belted at the waist, and decorated elaborately with the quills of the porcupine, stained red, yellow and blue and varied ...
— The Hunters of the Hills • Joseph Altsheler

... of game, the rivers and lakes were full of fish, the wild rice was Manidou gift to the red man. Would you like to see one of these Indians?" There stepped out on the porch an Indian man and woman dressed in furs, ornamented with porcupine quills. "There," said the chief, "my people were like those before ...
— The American Missionary Vol. XLIV. No. 2. • Various

... freund, now I can indeed repay you for 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 ...
— A Rip Van Winkle Of The Kalahari - Seven Tales of South-West Africa • Frederick Cornell

... parts of the animal bodies also were employed in divination. Tylor[1639] mentions the examination of the bones of the porcupine among North American Indians, the color giving indications as to the success of hunting expeditions. The shoulder blade, when put into the fire, showed by splits in it various kinds of fortune. The heart was of less significance in ancient ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy

... 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. Curry-combing ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent

... the animals had sniffed and snivelled its way into the ark—it was a porcupine with a cold in its head—the islanders, the M.A.'s, Lucy and Mr. Noah followed. And when every one was in, the door of the ark was shut from inside by an ingenious mechanical contrivance worked by a more than ...
— The Magic City • Edith Nesbit

... turned their eyes a new creation seemed to bloom around. No signs of human thrift appeared to check the delicious wildness of Nature, who here reveled in all her luxuriant variety. Those hills, now bristled, like the fretful porcupine, with rows of poplars (vain upstart plants! minions of wealth and fashion!), were then adorned with the vigorous natives of the soil—the hardy oak, the generous chestnut, the graceful elm—while here and there the tulip tree reared its majestic head, the giant of the forest. Where now are seen the ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester

... against as the human 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 ...
— Emma McChesney & Co. • Edna Ferber

... 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. ...
— Po-No-Kah - An Indian Tale of Long Ago • Mary Mapes Dodge

... Porcupine fish are a delicacy, squid are esteemed, and even the devilfish is on the tables, hideous, repellent, slimy, horned, and tentacled; not mighty enough to crush out the life of the fisher, as was the horrific creature in Victor Hugo's ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien

... he must have been in frequent need of referring to his 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

... characteristic! It is forbidden to the Ghost to communicate to 'ears of flesh and blood' 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

... small wolf, here and there the grey wolf, the fox and the mountain lion (panther) occur. The moose and red deer are found in the wooded regions, and the jumping deer and antelope on the prairies. Wild sheep and goats live in the Rocky Mountains. The lynx, wolverine, porcupine, skunk, hare, squirrel and mouse are met. The gopher is a resident of the dry plains. District (C) is the fur-trader's paradise. The buffalo is replaced by the mountain buffaloes, of which a few survive. The musk-ox comes in thousands every year to the great northern ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... in addition to his present, they with Drew and we retired to 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, fond of mirth and assume a degree of Superiority-, the air gun astonished ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al

... busy in preparing food, she made clothing and moccasins. She stained porcupine quills for trimmings, and made necklaces of shells. The teeth of wild animals ...
— Two Indian Children of Long Ago • Frances Taylor

... man, and his attire was simpler. Like all our southern Indians, he went naked to the waist; but the savage's love of ornament showed forth in the fringe of colored porcupine quills on his leggings and in his raven hair bestuck with feathers. For arms he had an arsenal in his belt; two great pistols, a tomahawk, and the scalping-knife, this last smaller than the white man's carving tool, but far more ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde

... reception accorded 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 in ...
— Priestley in America - 1794-1804 • Edgar F. Smith

... proceed—I instantly sent off an express to the admiral, another to the Porcupine man of war, and went myself to Martha Bray to get vessels; for all their vessels here, as well as many of their houses, were gone to Moco. Got three small vessels, and set out back again to Cuba, where I arrived the fourth day after leaving my companions. ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous

... skirt, which fell in creases on the floor and trailed a couple of yards or so behind, it wore a black low-cut sleeveless bodice—much too big for it—of the fashion early Victorian. A good deal of dark-brown hair, fastened up by hair-pins that stuck out in all directions like quills upon a porcupine, suggesting collapse with every movement, was ornamented by three enormous green feathers, one of which hung limply over the lady's left ear. Three times, while I watched, unnoticed, the lady propped it into a more befitting attitude, ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome

... Pasamanos Pasatiempo (pastime), Pasatiempos Picaparte (latch or latchkey), Picapartes Pisaverde (beau), Pisaverdes Portaestandarte (standard bearer), Portaestandartes Portafusil (musket-sling), Portafusiles Puercoespin (porcupine), Puercosespines Quienquiera (whoever), Quienesquiera Quitasol (parasol), Quitasoles Ricahembra (woman of gentle birth), Ricashembras Sobrecama (counterpane), Sobrecamas Sobredicho (aforesaid), Sobredichos Tapaboca (slap on the mouth), ...
— Pitman's Commercial Spanish Grammar (2nd ed.) • C. A. Toledano

... I thought 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. ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon

... had once been white, but which inexorable Time had mellowed in tone, and whose nap, having been brushed up the wrong way, against the grain, frizzed out around its circumference like a furze bush, making it resemble the "fretful porcupine" spoken of by ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson

... indigenous in Babylonia appear to be chiefly the following:—the lion, the leopard, the hyeena, the lynx, the wild-cat, the wolf, the jackal, the wild-boar, the buffalo, the stag, the gazelle, the jerboa, the fox, the hare, the badger, and the porcupine. The Mesopotamian lion is a noble animal. Taller and larger than a Mount St. Bernard dog, he wanders over the plains their undisputed lord, unless when an European ventures to question his pre-eminence. The Arabs tremble at his approach, and willingly ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 1. (of 7): Chaldaea • George Rawlinson

... mercy; you couldn't escape. Allyn can fight and run away; that makes him doubly dangerous. He does fight, too. He is a dear boy, Billy; but I honestly think that, if he goes on, he won't have a friend left in town. He is a veritable porcupine, and his quills ...
— Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book • Anna Chapin Ray

... deserted by the fair, looking off with a slightly mournful indifference at everything and at nothing. His mustache ended in upturned points, his beard was pointed, his hair stood up in little points. He gave the impression besides of one whose nervous temper put out porcupine shafts to keep ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall

... balance. Uttering a little scream Helen grasped at him wildly, and her arm encircled his neck. What was still more trying, when he put her on her feet again, it was found that her hair had become entangled in the porcupine quills ...
— The Last Trail • Zane Grey

... 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 to destroy the ...
— Alien Offer • Al Sevcik

... same way with Prickly Porky the Porcupine. You never see anybody bothering him or offering to do him any ...
— The Adventures of Jimmy Skunk • Thornton W. Burgess

... skirt, brilliant in its adornment of stained quills of the porcupine got from the Indians, Francette paced daintily here and there in the clean-swept yard, now snapping her small fingers, now coaxing with soft noises in her round throat, her sparkling eyes fixed on the gaunt grey skeleton ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe

... makes his bow as an English journalist. He was already notorious in America, as the author of the 'Letters of Peter Porcupine,' published at Philadelphia; and, upon his return to England, he projected an anti-democratic newspaper, under the title of The Porcupine, the first number of which appeared in November, 1800. It was a very vigorous ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various

... 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

... remained so long as game could be found within a circuit of ten or twelve miles, and then, subsistence failing, removed to another spot. Early in the winter, they hunted the beaver and the Canada porcupine; and, later, in the season of deep snows, chased the moose and ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman

... I feel as if I had been sleeping on a porcupine. Light up the gas and let's see what ...
— Ghosts I have Met and Some Others • John Kendrick Bangs

... on the Wittenberg, sleeping on the moss, between two decayed logs, with balsam boughs thrust into the ground and meeting and forming a canopy over us. In coming off the mountain in the morning we ran upon a huge porcupine, and I learned for the first time that the tail of a porcupine goes with a spring like a trap. It seems to be a set-lock; and you no sooner touch with the weight of a hair one of the quills than the tail leaps up in a most surprising manner, and the laugh ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs

... pinnace, which had been 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 ...
— Prince Henry the Navigator, the Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D. • C. Raymond Beazley

... met an Echidna one day, And he cried, "What a very odd nose! So exceedingly sharp. Why, it's funnier far Than your porcupine coat and your toes." Then most rudely he made all the echoes resound With "he-hees!" ...
— Harper's Young People, May 11, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... provides for the free navigation of the St. Lawrence, Yukon, Porcupine, and Stikine rivers. Article XXVII provides for the equal use of certain frontier canals and waterways, and contains no provision for termination upon notice. Article XXVIII opens Lake Michigan to the commerce of British subjects under proper ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume IX. • Benjamin Harrison

... mountains, with outlines that from afar suggested the fantastic castles 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 ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... passions of its inhabitants, and not from siege or invasion. The front of Louis XII. is of red brick, crossed here and there with purple; and the purple slate of the high roof, relieved with chimneys beautifully treated and with the embroidered caps of pinnacles and arches, with the porcupine of Louis, the ermine and the festooned rope which formed the devices of Anne of Brittany—the tone of this decorative roof carries out the mild glow of the wall. The wide, fair windows open as if they had expanded to let in the rosy dawn of the Renaissance. Charming, for that matter, ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James

... 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

... Creek, White Fish River, Leech Lake, Beaver Bay, Carp River, Pigeon Falls, Elkhorn, Wolverine, Crane Hill, Rabbit Butte, Owl, Rattlesnake, Curlew, Little Crow, Mullet Lake, Clam Lake, Turtle Creek, Deerfield, Porcupine Tail, Pelican Lake, Kingfisher, Ravens' Spring, Deer Ears, Bee Hill, Fox Creek, White Rabbit—can any one mistake the animals haunting these places in earlier days? Trapper's Grove tells a story we ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle

... 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, told ...
— Mr. Stubbs's Brother - A Sequel to 'Toby Tyler' • James Otis

... home-industry in Venice, and if we go down to the lower parts of the Lagoon city, where the people dwell, we shall see numbers of women and children seated before large baskets, out of which glass pipes protrude like the quills of a gigantic porcupine. With fingers spread wide apart, they carefully weigh and feel the contents of the baskets, till they have sorted all the pipes, according to their sizes. The different bundles are then carried ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various

... 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 none of you ever bite one. And they won't bite you if you ...
— Uncle Wiggily's Adventures • Howard R. Garis

... us in his delightful way of the fox, mink, skunk, weasel, porcupine, muskrat, and other wild creatures. There are fifteen colored illustrations reduced from ...
— A Mother's List of Books for Children • Gertrude Weld Arnold

... approach them with feelings altogether dissimilar. We cannot conceive of them as using the expressions or the gestures of each other. Let us suppose that a zoologist should attempt to give an account of some animal, a porcupine for instance, to people who had never seen it. The porcupine, he might say, is of the class mammalia, and the order glires. There are whiskers on its face; it is two feet long; it has four toes before, five behind, ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... and hover, sip champagne and whiff Mild cigarettes; these too, in secret sniff At 'the whole queer caboodle.' Why do they meet? How shall I say, good friend? Modern symposiasts seem a curious blend Of porcupine ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, January 25th, 1890 • Various

... 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

... deserted places, they each consulted his own medicine. White Otter had skinned and dried and tanned the skin of the little brown bat, and covered it with gaudy porcupine decorations. This he had tied to his carefully cultivated scalp-lock, where it switched in the passing breeze. People in the camp were beginning to say "the little brown bat boy" as he passed ...
— The Way of an Indian • Frederic Remington

... porcupine in your dreams, denotes that you will disapprove any new enterprise and ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller

... skins, 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 ...
— Boys' Book of Indian Warriors - and Heroic Indian Women • Edwin L. Sabin

... I intend to present you to-night in the salon of a duchess,—a duchess of the rue Saint-Georges, where you will see the aristocracy of the lorettes, and probably be able to win your lawsuit. But it is quite impossible to present you anywhere with that mop of Pyrenean hair; you look like a porcupine; and therefore we'll take you close by, Place de la Bourse, to ...
— Unconscious Comedians • Honore de Balzac

... they dragged up their canoes, and made their cheerless bivouac in the drenched and dripping forest. Here they spent five days, living on pumpkins and Indian corn, the gift of their Pottawattamie friends, and on a Canada porcupine, brought in by La Salle's Mohegan hunter. The gale raged meanwhile with a relentless fury. They trembled when they thought of the "Griffin." When at length the tempest lulled, they re-embarked, and ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman

... who lived far in the East and had nothing to boast of, made up his mind to win the princess. His friends laughed at him but he started out on his trip, taking with him some chickens, a goat, rice, rice-straw, millet-seed, and palm-oil. He met in succession a hungry porcupine, an alligator, a horned viper, and some ants, of all of whom he made friends by feeding them the things he had taken along. He reserved some of the rice, and when he arrived at the King's court he gave it to a hungry servant who in turn told him the secret of the amulet. So ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck

... I became sufficiently inured to the conversation between Chollo and her sympathizers I fell asleep. But along toward morning some inquisitive deer came in to share the grain our horses had scattered, and a big porcupine came home from lodge, quarreling and debating with himself about something. He stopped near us and chattered angrily about it, permanently ending ...
— I Married a Ranger • Dama Margaret Smith

... The Porcupine is large and fine of this kind; but as he lives only upon fruit, and loves cold, is most common about the river Illinois, where the climate is somewhat cold, and there is plenty of wild fruits. The skin, when stripped ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz

... a day or two," said her father; "but I must get over to that ditch survey which is being made at the head of Poplar, and then Moore is coming over to look at some timber on Porcupine." ...
— The Forester's Daughter - A Romance of the Bear-Tooth Range • Hamlin Garland

... blazes to Macleod and tell the Inspector all that I have told you and get him to send what men he can spare along with you. You can't get a man here. The raid starts from the Piegan Reserve. It will likely finish where the old Porcupine Trail joins the Sun Dance. At least so I judge. Ride by the ranch and get some of them there to show you the shortest trail. Both Mandy ...
— The Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail • Ralph Connor

... strength had been tested in many a desperate encounter, and which 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 ...
— Frank Among The Rancheros • Harry Castlemon

... 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

... it, 'Till then 'tis fit for a West Saxon Poet. But do the brotherhood then play their prizes? Like murmurs in religion with disguises? Out-brave us with a name in rank and file, A name, which if 'twere trained would spread a mile; The Saints monopoly, the zealous cluster, Which like a porcupine presents a muster. ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber

... twelve gunboats, that had been sent out in pieces from England, were completed and launched. Each carried one gun, and was manned by twenty-one men. Six of these drew their crews from the Brilliant, five from the Porcupine, and one from the Speedwell, cutter. These craft had been specially designed for the purpose of engaging the enemy's gunboats, and for ...
— Held Fast For England - A Tale of the Siege of Gibraltar (1779-83) • G. A. Henty

... in after dinner completed by TIM HEALY dashing in with intent to trip up Colonel. Domestic difficulties in the Party have not smoothed down TIM's natural truculence. With JOHN REDMOND sitting behind him and SAUNDERSON in front, a porcupine in fretful mood is a ball of spun silk compared ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 102, February 27, 1892 • Various

... is to 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 good clergyman, kindly. "Hum," growled the squire, who was now once more engaged in rubbing himself. "Thank Heaven indeed, when I am as full of thorns as a porcupine! I should just like to know what use thistles are ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... 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 ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton

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

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

... A Porcupine, seeking for shelter, desired some Snakes to give him admittance into their cave. They accordingly let him in, but were afterward so annoyed by his sharp, prickly quills that they repented of their easy compliance, and entreated him ...
— The Talking Beasts • Various

... of a combination of small tubes, connected at one end to a reservoir, was the invention of another American, John Stevens, in 1804. This boiler was actually employed to generate steam for running a steamboat on the Hudson River, but like all the "porcupine" boilers, of which type it was the first, it did not have the elements ...
— Steam, Its Generation and Use • Babcock & Wilcox Co.

... sunken flanks, and upon two bones which stick out on each side of his belly. His coat is roughened by the sweat which has repeatedly come out and dried upon him, and which, no less than the dust, has made him gummy, sticky and shaggy. The horse looks like a wrathy porcupine: you are afraid he will be foundered, and you caress him with the whip-lash in a melancholy way that he perfectly understands, for he moves his head about like an omnibus horse, tired of his ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac

... home Bill succeeded in purchasing, after much talk, a pair of moccasins that Hazel conceded to be a work of art, what with the dainty pattern of beads and the ornamentation of colored porcupine quills. Her feminine soul could not cavil when Bill thrust them in the pocket of her coat, even if her mind was set against accepting any peace tokens at ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... it. It does not seem to be afraid of any one or anything. It will march across the road in front of a motor car, or crawl up the leg of your boot. Sometimes when you brush it off with your hand, little hairs are left sticking in your fingers, because it is really like a small porcupine, protected by short spears sticking out of its skin in all directions. Here at the side of the picture, is one of these hairs seen under ...
— Woodland Tales • Ernest Seton-Thompson

... noonday sun to half-tones. Still another, whether by the fault of over-magnifying power or long-sightedness, detects an infinity of detail in nature, and is not satisfied until each particular blade of grass stands on end like the quills of the traditional porcupine, while his brother brush strenuously asserts that every detail is really only a question of mass, and should be treated as such, and that for all practical purposes it is quite immaterial whether a tree can be ...
— Outdoor Sketching - Four Talks Given before the Art Institute of Chicago; The Scammon Lectures, 1914 • Francis Hopkinson Smith

... splinters of reeds should be applied to his body, and by cords strait drawn and pulled, should be pressed deep into his flesh, and that in this condition his body, pierced all over with sharp spikes, armed like a porcupine, should be rolled on the ground. After these tortures, he was put into the screw or press, and boiling pitch and brimstone were poured into his mouth. By this last torment he obtained a crown equal to that of his brother. Under their most exquisite tortures they thought they bought heaven ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler

... hedgehog, or a prickly porcupine," said Bunker. "That animal is all covered with sharp quills, like a lot of toothpicks. They aren't very tightly fastened to him, and if a dog, or some other animal, tries to bite, he gets his mouth full of sharp, slivery quills from ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue at Camp Rest-A-While • Laura Lee Hope

... certainly majestic looking. A little two year old tot had his ears pierced from top to bottom and common wire with three cornered pieces of shiny tin run through all the places. His eyes were very black, shiny and bright, but we could not raise a smile from him. That chief was all porcupine quill and bead embroidery. He was painted, too, as were all the rest. St. Paul, after we had climbed that awful flight of stairs up the bluff, looked like a little town that had been left. Our carriage to St. Anthony was a light express wagon ...
— Old Rail Fence Corners - The A. B. C's. of Minnesota History • Various

... leathern sling and smooth stones. The unarmed hand which grasps God's hand should never tremble; and he who can say 'I come ... in the name of the Lord of hosts,' has no need to be afraid of an army of Goliaths, though each bristled with swords and spears like a porcupine. ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... his waist a brilliant deep-red sash, heavily embroidered with beads, porcupine quills and dyed moose hair, placing it over the Prince's left shoulder and knotting it beneath his right arm. The ceremony was ended. The Constitution that Hiawatha had founded centuries ago, a Constitution wherein fifty chiefs, no more, no less, should form the parliament of the "Six Nations," ...
— Legends of Vancouver • E. Pauline Johnson

... 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 Peace of Roaring River • George van Schaick

... 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, ...
— Further Adventures of Lad • Albert Payson Terhune

... dimples'; her bosom ripening, her waist 'lissom as the stalk of a flower,' her head; 'of a perfect oval' (literally, bird's-egg shaped), her fingers like the leafy 'spears of lemon-grass' or the 'quills of the porcupine,' her eyes 'like the splendor of the planet Venus,' and her lips 'like the fissure of a pomegranate.'" (W.W. Skeat, Malay Magic, 1900, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... 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 ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.

... we 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, ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James

... none, sir,' rejoined Mr Crummles. 'To the infant's benefit, last year, on which occasion she repeated three of her most popular characters, and also appeared in the Fairy Porcupine, as originally performed by her, there was a house of no more ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens

... the window frame he saluted the rider, and it was in this glance that his eye caught sight of the sword-strap of the rapier at the rider's side. For—strangely out of place in that longitude—this was a piece of snow-white fawn-skin; embroidered in fantastic colours, woven with porcupine quills; and adorned with a clan totem, known only in the region of the River ...
— The False Chevalier - or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette • William Douw Lighthall

... and Jane felt the irritable palm more 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 disturbance was ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major

... to him, in all the writhing agonies of death, what misery is; I will cry aloud in wailings that shall creep through the very marrow of his bones, what misery is; and, while at my picture his hairs shall stand on end like quills upon the porcupine, will I shriek into his affrighted ear, that in the hour of death the sinews of these mighty gods of earth shall shrivel and shrink, and that at the day of judgment beggars and kings shall be weighed together in ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... 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

... 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 ...
— The Young Alaskans on the Missouri • Emerson Hough

... at the headwaters of the Little Peel, they consumed the rest of the summer in the great portage over the Mackenzie watershed to the West Rat. This little stream fed the Porcupine, which in turn joined the Yukon where that mighty highway of the North ...
— The Son of the Wolf • Jack London

... quarters. However, when the canoes first came up, the savages, seeing me on board walking the deck with as much dignity as the officer of the watch, began blowing their sumpits at me till I was stuck all over like a porcupine. Luckily none hit my face, and seeing me take the matter so unconcernedly, they ceased blowing, to discover what I was made of. I thereon pulled out the arrows, and going to the side of the vessel, with a polite bow presented them to my assailants, at the same time, by significant gestures, ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston

... lie out in the timber and listen to that, is more than I know—I love it!" The next moment he was sitting bolt upright, his hands fighting his sleeping bag, as the hair of his scalp seemed to rise like the quills of an enraged porcupine, and a peculiar tickly chill ran down his spine. The silence of the night was shattered by a sound so terrible that his blood seemed to chill at the horror of it. It was a wolf cry—but unlike the cry of any wolf he had ever heard. There was ...
— Connie Morgan in the Fur Country • James B. Hendryx

... pleased with the stanza, and they also improvised until, according to their versions, Long Lon bore a marked resemblance to a porcupine. Lon, being a real person, felt that Cheyenne's retaliation was just. Moreover, Lon, who never did anything hastily, let it be known casually that he had seen three riders west of the line shack some two days past, and that the riders were leading two horses, a buckskin ...
— Partners of Chance • Henry Herbert Knibbs

... the wild folk that Finn met for the first time in his life during these nine days, and continued to meet on a friendly footing, was a large native porcupine, or echidna. Finn was sniffing one afternoon at what he took to be the opening to a rabbit's burrow, when, greatly to his surprise, Echidna showed up, some three or four yards away, from one of the exits of the same ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson

... fatal accident as he was on his way to the tennis court with the Queen and his confessor, the Bishop of Angers. The door, which was very low at that time, was later raised and decorated with the porcupine of ...
— In Chteau Land • Anne Hollingsworth Wharton

... and we became hungry. Many wild beasts came plunging into the water beside us, and others swam across to our side, and stood still. Although faint and weary, I managed to shoot a porcupine, and ...
— New National Fourth Reader • Charles J. Barnes and J. Marshall Hawkes

... much football as a porcupine, Ma!" exclaimed Tracey. "A fellow has to play in the Jefferson ...
— The Mark of the Knife • Clayton H. Ernst

... 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 people should ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood

... French and the rulers of Central Europe, kept menageries and received as presents, or in connection with their trade with the East and their relations with Eastern rulers, frequent specimens of strange beasts from distant lands. Our King Henry I, had a menagerie at Woodstock, where he kept a porcupine, lions, leopards, and a camel! The Emperor Charlemagne received in 803 A.D. from Haroun al Raschid, the Caliph of Bagdad, an elephant named Abulabaz. It was brought to Aix-la-Chapelle by Isaac the Jew, and died suddenly in 810. Some four and a half centuries ...
— More Science From an Easy Chair • Sir E. Ray (Edwin Ray) Lankester

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

... iron pincers, a copper jug for water, that was suspended by a hook, behind my back, and some long bags for my tobacco. All these commodities were fastened about my body, and when I was fully equipped, I might be said to look like a porcupine with all its quills erect. My tobacco was of various sorts—Tabas, Shiraz, Susa, and Damascus. It is true that I was not very scrupulous about giving it pure; for with a very small quantity of the ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier

... voice and the bad cold told me he'd just burst if he didn't have someone to confide in right soon, he got me worked up to fever pitch. Now I've had to cool down. There isn't going to be any development. Our hair won't have to stand tip on end like the quills of the fretful porcupine. In so many words, Colon, ...
— Fred Fenton Marathon Runner - The Great Race at Riverport School • Allen Chapman

... colours that brightened the desolate winter landscape. Gay belts of green, blue, red, or yellow enriched the waists of their thick overcoats. Their scarlet leggings were laced up with green ribbons. Their moccasins were gorgeously embroidered with dyed porcupine quills. Their caps of beaver or martin were sometimes tied down over their ears with vivid handkerchiefs of silk. The habitants were rougher and more sombre in their dress. A black homespun coat, gray leggings, gray woollen cap, heavy moccasins ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various

... threw back her shrouding red shawl and stepped proudly out before him in the firelight. Her brown arms were bare and banded with bracelets of some dull metal. Her fringed dress of deerskin was heavily embroidered with stained porcupine quills. Her slim feet were clothed in beaded moccasins. It was the gala dress of the daughter of a chief, and as the daughter of a chief she stood straight and slender and haughty before him. The Happy Family stared at her, astonished. ...
— The Phantom Herd • B. M. Bower

... knew perfectly well that he would have visitors just as soon as he began to build his dam. He expected a lot of them. You see he knew that none of them ever had seen a Beaver at work unless perhaps it was Prickly Porky the Porcupine, who also had come down from the North. So as he worked he kept his ears open, and he smiled to himself as he heard a little rustle here and then a little rustle there. He knew just what those little rustles meant. Each one meant another visitor. Yes, Sir, each rustle meant another ...
— The Adventures of Paddy the Beaver • Thornton W. Burgess

... chief's face shone with grease, and was made fearful to look upon with much paint. On his robe were pictured the many battles in which he had taken part; it was trimmed with a heavy fringe of scalp-locks. His leggings and moccasins were richly embroidered with porcupine quills. He walked forth like a king. The children of the village trembled ...
— Timid Hare • Mary Hazelton Wade

... 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 ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton

... must be pretty straight from here. I rather think it will take us a little more than two days. All feel that we may have good hope of catching the steamer. Perhaps we shall get to tide water to-morrow. There have been signs of porcupine along the way to-day, and one standing wigwam. There is a big bed of moss berries (a small black berry, which grows on a species of moss and is quite palatable) right at my tent door to-night. So strange, almost unbelievable, to ...
— A Woman's Way Through Unknown Labrador • Mina Benson Hubbard (Mrs. Leonidas Hubbard, Junior)

... before I could make up my mind to force the lid. When I did the first thing that my eyes fell upon was this buckskin bag of unmistakable Indian design, beautifully decorated with bead work and highly colored porcupine quills cunningly worked into a good luck design. As I picked up the bag I saw that it was sealed with wax and to it was attached a ...
— The Black Wolf Pack • Dan Beard

... the back of the cellar, how in time the mortar and cement had to be ground to a powder and carried secretly away. He told how the tunnel was pushed forward, foot by foot; how the bank was attacked in its one and only vital spot, precisely as a porcupine curled defensively up in the snow is seized by the fisher-marten, not through open attack, but by artfully tunneling ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine

... William Cobbett, when he was a tory. He brought out Peter Porcupine's Gazette, The ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer

... 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 of the gods, a white ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy

... aussi le sien, dont elle prend le nom, et dont la figure est sa marque, ou, se l'on veut, ses armoiries, on ne signe point autrement les traites qu'en traceant ces figures." Among the animal totems Charlevoix notices porcupine, bear, wolf and turtle. The armoiries, the totemistic heraldry of the peoples of Virginia, greatly interested a heraldic ancestor of Gibbon the historian,(2) who settled in the colony. According to Schoolcraft,(3) the totem or family badge, of a dead ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang

... the people to see me!" In The Little Rabbit Who Wanted Red Wings, one of the pleasantest tales for little children, the White Rabbit said to his Mammy, "Oh, Mammy, I wish I had a long gray tail like Bushy Tail's; I wish I had a back full of bristles like Mr. Porcupine's; I wish I had a pair of red rubbers like Miss Puddleduck's." At last, when he beheld the tiny red-bird at the Wishing-Pond, he said, "Oh, I wish I had a pair of little red wings!" Then, after getting his wings, when he came home at night and his Mammy no longer knew ...
— A Study of Fairy Tales • Laura F. Kready

... 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 to ...
— Blazed Trail Stories - and Stories of the Wild Life • Stewart Edward White

... (I found out afterwards that they had been singing my praises and asking me to pity them and to do them good.) The chief Kahdoonahah danced with all his might during the singing. He wore a cap, which had a mask in front, set with mother-of-pearl, and trimmed with porcupine's quills. The quills enabled him to hold a quantity of white bird's down on the top of his head, which he ejected while dancing, by jerking his head forward: thus he soon appeared as if in a shower of snow. In the middle of the dance a man approached me with a handful ...
— Metlakahtla and the North Pacific Mission • Eugene Stock

... tepees, each with its feather of upward floating smoke curling away from its apex. Many of the Indians were already crowding about the train, some with polished buffalo horns for sale, and all magnificently dressed in buckskin, decorated with fine, old-fashioned bead work, and the quills of the porcupine. ...
— The Shagganappi • E. Pauline Johnson

... Together they had planned a Leather-Stocking dinner, at which should be served as many of the viands mentioned in the Tales as possible. We stayed two days and it was one long feast. We had venison served in half a dozen different ways. We had antelope; we had porcupine, or hedgehog, as Pathfinder called it; and also we had beaver-tail, which he found toothsome, but which I did not. We had grouse and sage hen. They broke the ice and snared a lot of trout. In their cellar they had a barrel of trout prepared exactly like mackerel, and ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart

... forest evening sounds. Only weak little twitters came from the wood warblers, driven to silence by thickening gloom in the densely canopied balsams and cedars, and frightened by the first low hoots of the owls. There was a crash not far distant, probably a porcupine waddling through brush on his way for a drink; or perhaps it was a thirsty deer, or a bear coming out in the hope of finding a dead fish. Carrigan loved that sort of sound, even when a pendulum was beating back and forth in his head. It was like medicine ...
— The Flaming Forest • James Oliver Curwood

... second ball, which brought him to anchor. In this 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

... was bestowed on this bird, and the Major's spoil would have borne the honors of the day, had not Robert come across an animal a few miles further on, and bravely killed it. It was a shapeless creature, half porcupine, half ant-eater, a sort of unfinished animal belonging to the first stage of creation. A long glutinous extensible tongue hung out of his jaws in search of the ants, which formed ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne

... 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 ...
— The Courage of Marge O'Doone • James Oliver Curwood

... putoro. police : police, (—"court") jugxejo. policy : politiko. polish : poluri. politics : politiko. pompous : pompa. poodle : pudelo. poor : malricxa, kompatinda. pope : papo. poplar : poplo. poppy : papavo. -"coloured", punca popular : populara. porcelain : porcelano. porcupine : histriko. porous : pora, truajxa. porpoise : fokeno. porridge : kacxo. port : haveno. porter : portisto, pordisto. portion : parto, (ration) porcio, portmanteau : valizo. position : pozicio, situacio. positive : pozitiva, definitiva. possess ...
— The Esperanto Teacher - A Simple Course for Non-Grammarians • Helen Fryer

... intelligent species of monkeys, will learn lessons from isolated experiences. In this regard they are indeed quite as apt as the lower kinds of men. Thus a dog who has had an unsavory or painful experience with a skunk or a porcupine is apt to keep away from these creatures for a long time thereafter. Where, as is not infrequently the case, a cur takes to eating eggs, a single dose of tartar emetic concealed in an egg which is placed where he can readily find it, is apt to effect an immediate and complete reform. This ready ...
— Domesticated Animals - Their Relation to Man and to his Advancement in Civilization • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler

... gave to me a belt, a belt of texture fine, Of snowy hue, emboss'd with blue and scarlet porcupine; This tender braid sustain'd the blade I drew against the foe, And ever prest upon my breast, to mark its ardent glow. And if with art I act my part, and bravely fighting stand, I, in the din, a trophy ...
— The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians • Henry R. Schoolcraft

... Traddles. 'Nothing will induce it. If I was to carry a half-hundred-weight upon it, all the way to Putney, it would be up again the moment the weight was taken off. You have no idea what obstinate hair mine is, Copperfield. I am quite a fretful porcupine.' ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens

... provisional demarcation of 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 ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt

... man wouldn't ask to see the kitchen. He visualized the Castile Motors Bartender in there, like a porcupine in a ...
— Cost of Living • Robert Sheckley

... 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 in 1528, after the Medici ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas

... not forget their graver business. Ever Virginia kept watch for a track that was not an animal track, a blaze on a tree that was not made by the teeth of a porcupine or grizzly, a charred cook rack over the ashes of a fire. But as yet they had found no sign of human wayfarers other than themselves. There were no cut trees, no blazed trails, no sign of a habitation. Yet she didn't despair. She had ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall

... but Aunt Miranda sat by the window with her lap full of sewing things, and a chair piled with pasteboard boxes by her side. In one hand was the ancient, battered, brown felt turban, and in the other were the orange and black porcupine quills from Rebecca's last summer's hat; from the hat of the summer before that, and the summer before that, and so on back to prehistoric ages of which her childish memory kept no specific record, though she was sure that Temperance and ...
— New Chronicles of Rebecca • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... Highland Turtle (striped), Highland Turtle (black), Mud Turtle, Smooth Large Turtle, Hawk, Beaver, Wolf, Sea Snake, and Porcupine. ...
— Wyandot Government: A Short Study of Tribal Society - Bureau of American Ethnology • John Wesley Powell

... the bottom of the channel, and the momentarily increasing weight of logs held them there—this at least was the theory at the time. When first we got down there, however, there were more than a thousand logs in the glut; and the ends stood up like a porcupine's quills, at every conceivable angle. The obstructing logs in the throat of the fall bore the pressure rather lengthwise than across the fibre. These sticks were of yellow spruce, fifty feet long, and ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 10 • Various

... But the most formidable obstruction was immediately along the front of the breastwork, where the ground was covered with heavy boughs, overlapping and interlaced, with sharpened points bristling into the face of the assailant like the quills of a porcupine. As these works were all of wood, no vestige of them remains. The earthworks now shown to tourists as the lines of Montcalm are of later construction; and though on the same ground, are not ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman

... Nelson, feeling it imperative to keep up his pose of independence. "But it might just happen that your hand would close on a porcupine, and so far from hurting the porcupine it would be your hand that ...
— Astounding Stories, February, 1931 • Various

... him by the smell, and on coming up to him, uttered a shrill grunt. 'The snake, finding that he was overtaken, threw himself into a coil, and prepared to give battle; while his antagonist, now looking more like a great porcupine than a pig, drew back, as if to take the advantage of a run; and then halted. Both for a moment eyed each other—the peccary evidently calculating its distance—while the great snake seemed cowed and quivering with affright. ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 422, New Series, January 31, 1852 • Various

... of salt. The formidable character of the white bear. Porcupine river described. Beautiful appearance of the surrounding country. Immense quantities of game. Milk river described. Extraordinary character of Bigdry river. An instance of uncommon tenacity of life in a white bear. Narrow escape of one of the ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark

... assembled round the kitchen fire, and had become much more fond of hearing his own voice. John did not so much admire these evening parties. He cared nothing for new books, or indeed any books. He would amuse himself making moccasins, or working porcupine quills with the Strawberry at one corner of the fire, and the others might talk or read, it was all the same, John never said a word or appeared to pay the least attention to what was said. His father occasionally tried to make him learn ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat

... the trees, I saw that they were not pine-trees, but very different indeed. Both trunks and branches had long thorny spikes upon them like porcupine's quills, and the leaves were of a bright shining green, pinnate with small oval leaflets. But what was most singular was the long bean-shaped pods that hung down thickly from the branches. These were about an inch and a half in breadth, and some of them not ...
— The Desert Home - The Adventures of a Lost Family in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid

... love she had For ornament; on gala days was clad In garments of the softest doeskin fine, With shells about her neck; moccasins neat Were drawn, like gloves, upon her little feet, Adorned with scarlet quills of porcupine. Innocent of the niceties refined That to the toilet her pale sisters bind, Yet much the same beneath the outer rind, She was, though all unskilled in bookish lore, A sound, sweet woman to ...
— Indian Legends of Minnesota • Various

... doeskin girt with strings of wampum, and hung about their tawny shoulders the lovely greens and blues of uncut turquoise. Meanwhile, also, the great chief Torquam donned his ceremonial dress, a string of eagle feathers held by the crimsoned quills of the porcupine and extending down his back until almost it touched the ground. About his neck, as token of his priesthood, he threw the bear-claw necklace, known far and wide among the tribes for its famous powers of healing. Wildenai alone made no change except to ...
— Their Mariposa Legend • Charlotte Herr

... of the press of Chicago, but there is only one—a weekly—and I believe it is printed in New York. The reverend gentleman who began the discussion to-night started into this subject very much like a coon, and as we listened, as he went on, we perceived he came out a porcupine. He was scientific in everything he said in favor of the press; unscientific in everything against it. He spoke to you in favor of the suppression of news, which means, I take it, the dissemination of crime. He spoke to you in favor of the suppression of sewer-gas. Chicago to-day owes ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various

... hunting or walking in solitude, he would suddenly be seized with an unearthly fright, terribly awe stricken, apprehending some great evil. He feels very peculiar sensation from head to foot—the hair of his head standing and feeling stiff like a porcupine quill. He feels almost benumbed with fright, and yet he does not know what it is; and looking in every direction to see something, but nothing to be seen which might cause sensation of terror. Collecting himself, he would ...
— History of the Ottawa and Chippewa Indians of Michigan • Andrew J. Blackbird



Words linked to "Porcupine" :   quill, rodent, gnawer



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