The nest of this Porcupine is generally found in holes in trees or rocky hollows, and in it the young, usually two, more rarely three or four in number, are born in April or May. The young are easily tamed. Audubon says that one which he possessed never exhibited anger, except when some one tried to remove it from a tree which it was in the habit of mounting. It had gradually become very tame and seldom made any use of its nails, so that he would open its cage and afford it a free walk in the garden. When he called it, tempting it with a sweet potato or an apple, it turned its head toward him, gave him a gentle, friendly look and then slowly hobbled up to him, took the fruit out of his hand, sat down on its hind legs and raised the food to its mouth with its fore-paws. Frequently when it would find the door of the family room open it would enter, approach and rub itself against a member of the family looking up pleadingly as if asking for some dainty. Audubon tried in vain to arouse it to an exhibition of anger. When a Dog came in view matters were different. Then it instantly assumed the defensive. With its nose lowered, all its quills erect, and its tail moving back and forth, it was ready for the fray. The Dog sprang upon the Porcupine with open mouth. That animal seemed to swell up in an instant to nearly double its size, sharply watched the Dog and at the right moment dealt it such a well-aimed blow with its tail that the Mastiff lost courage and set up a loud howl of pain. His mouth, tongue, and nose were full of Porcupine quills. He could not close his jaws, but hurried open-mouthed off the premises. Although the spines were immediately extracted, the Dog's head was terribly swollen for several weeks afterward, and it was months before he entirely recovered. [Illustration: From col. Chi. Acad. Sciences. CANADIAN PORCUPINE. 1/4 Life-size. Copyright by Nature Study Pub. Co., 1898, Chicago.] THE DEATH OF THE FLOWERS. The melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year, Of wailing winds, and naked woods, and meadows brown and sear. Heaped in the hollows of the grove, the autumn leaves lie dead; They rustle to the eddying gust, and to the Rabbit's tread. The Robin and the Wren are flown, and from the shrubs the Jay, And from the wood-top calls the Crow through all the gloomy day. Where are the flowers, the fair young flowers, that lately sprang and stood In brighter light, and softer airs, a beauteous sisterhood? Alas! they all are in their graves, the gentle race of flowers Are lying in their lowly beds, with the fair and good of ours. The rain is falling where they lie, but the cold November rain Calls not from out the gloomy earth the lovely ones again.