In every article we have to treat of we always meet with more errors to
confute than facts to relate. This arises from the history of animals
having been only written of late by prejudiced persons, who take the
list of their little systems for the genuine register of Nature. There
are not any animals of the warm climates of the old continent existing
in America, and reciprocally there are not any of the South American
animals to be met with under the torrid zone of Africa and Asia. The
porcupine, as already observed, is a native of the hot countries of
the old world, and having never been found in the new, they have not
hesitated to give his name to animals which seemed to resemble him,
and particularly to that which we have now under consideration. On the
other hand, the Coendou (_fig. 163._) of America has been transported
to the East Indies; and Piso, who probably was not acquainted with
the porcupine, has made Bontius, who only speaks of animals in the
southern parts of Asia, engrave the coendou of America under the name
and description of the true porcupine; so that, at the first view, we
should firmly believe, that this animal existed equally in America and
in Asia. It is easy, however, to discover, with a little attention,
that Piso, who is in this, as well as in most parts of his work, only a
plagiarist of Marcgrave, has not only copied his figure of the coendou,
into his history of Brasil, but has copied it again for the work of
Bontius, of which he was the editor. Therefore, though we find the
figure of the coendou in Bontius, we must not conclude, that it exists
in Java, or in any other part of the East Indies, nor take this figure
for that of the porcupine, which, in fact, the coendou only resembles
by its quills or prickles.
It is to Ximenes, and afterwards to Hernandes, that we owe the first
knowledge of this animal, which they have indicated under the Mexican
name of _hoitztlacuatzin_. The _tlacuatzin_ is the opossum and the
_hoitztlacuatzin_ should be translated the _bristly_ or _spinous
opossum_. This name has been misapplied, for these animals resemble
each other very little. Marcgrave has not adopted this Mexican
denomination, but calls this animal _cuandu_. The only thing we can
reproach Marcgrave with, is his not having known, that the cuandu of
Brasil was the same animal as the hoitztlacuatzin of Mexico, especially
as his description and figure agree with those of Hernandes; and as
Laët, the editor and commentator of Marcgrave expressly says, that
the spiny tlacuatzin of Ximenes, and the cuandu, are probably the
same animal. By collecting the scattered accounts of travellers there
appears to be two varieties of these animals, which the naturalists,
after Piso, have inserted in their lists as two different species,
namely, the great and the little coendou: but what immediately proves
the error, or negligence of Piso, is, that although he describes
these coendous in two separate and distinct articles, and seems to
look on them as different species, he represents both by the same
figure: which, we think, sufficient foundation to pronounce them
the same animal. There are likewise other naturalists who have not
only made two species of the great and little coendou but have also
separated the hoitztlacuatzin, and given all three as different
animals. I own, indeed, that although it is probable, the coendou and
the hoitztlacuatzin are the same animal, yet this identity is not so
certain as that of the great and little coendou.
However that may be, the coendou is not the porcupine. He is much
smaller; his head and muzzle shorter; he has no tuft on its head nor is
his upper lip divided; his quills are proportionally shorter and much
finer; his tail is long, and that of the porcupine very short: he is
carnivorous rather than frugivorous, and endeavours to surprize birds,
small animals, and poultry, while the porcupine only feeds upon herbs,
roots, and fruits. He sleeps all the day like the hedge-hog, and only
stirs out in the night: he climbs up trees, and hangs on branches by
his tail. All travellers agree, that his flesh is very good eating. He
is easily tamed, and commonly lives in high places. These animals are
found over all America, from Brasil and Guiana, to Louisiana and the
southern parts of Canada; while the porcupine is only to be found in
the hottest parts of the Old Continent.
By conferring the name of porcupine on the coendou, the same faculties
have been attributed to him, especially that of shooting his quills.
It is astonishing that naturalists and travellers should agree on this
circumstance, and that Piso, who ought to have been less superstitious,
as he was a physician, should gravely assert, that the quills of the
coendou pierce into the flesh by their own power, and penetrate into
the body even to the most internal viscera. Ray is the only person who
has denied these circumstances, although they evidently appear to be
absurd. How many absurdities have been exposed by men of sense, which,
nevertheless, are affirmed by other men who think they are endowed with
a greater degree of understanding!