beforehand. On the eve of the day
appointed for their departure, they meet in
their club-room, and feast and riot there, till
it is time to open the doors and start. Those
who are not so fortunate as to take part in
the expedition, accompany their confrères a
little way, and embrace them on parting as if
they were never to behold them again. The
sportsmen, ordinarily eight or ten in number,
promise to work miracles for the honour of
the club, and set off, preceded by one or two
donkeys laden with tools and creature-
comforts, and followed by two or three couples of
almost-always mangy terriers. Each hunter
is armed with a stick five feet long, to the
extremity of which is fitted a piece of lance-
shaped iron with teeth like a saw. This
pleasing instrument is intended to spit the
enemy, and to drag him out of his hole, as a
cork-screw would a cork. The girdles of the
most robust adventurers are adorned with
iron hammers of all shapes and sizes, whose
mission is to widen the runs of the porcupine
to admit the entrance of a child ten or twelve
years of age, the smallest, puniest, most wire-
drawn animal in all creation, who, if he
walked upon his hands and feet, would be
the perfect image of a turnspit or an otter-
hunting Scotch terrier. This abortion is
covered from head to foot with a leather
dress (which is his armour of proof, that
makes him look like an overgrown spider).
He is the hero, the Hercules of the band;
for his unfailing duty is to attack the prey.

The porcupine-slayers march for several
days over mountain and plain, sleeping beneath
the starry vault slightly protected by
some tolerant douar, which, as a great favour
allows them to encamp within gunshot
distance. At last they arrive at a burrow which
they know of, or which has been pointed out
to them. The presence of the porcupine is
betrayed by sundry quills which he has let
fall; his habitual points of exit and entrance
are betrayed by numerous foot-steps. There
can be no doubt about the matter; this tenement
is inhabited. The dogs, uncoupled,
disappear in the mouths of the burrow, and,
immediately that they give tongue, the sportsmen
answer with a joyous hurrah, and
prepare their arms to besiege the place. When
all is ready for opening the trenches, they
look out for the biped who plays the part of
terrier; but in vain. He and his lance have
disappeared. It is useless to interrogate the
echoes around by calling him by the
tenderest names. The support, the pride, and
the hope of the expedition remains invisible.

Whilst the hunters, believing him lost, are
giving way to their despair, the dogs rush
out of the burrow, with their wiry hair standing
on end; and then, after the dogs, appears
at first a foot, and then a leg, advancing
backwards, and soon afterwards the lengthy body
and the head of the child, who throws into
the midst of his companions a porcupine
almost as big as himself and as lively as can
be, although transfixed. After killing the
animal, he is regularly prepared for the spit,
the entrails being replaced with aromatic
plants, mingled with a few handsfull of salt.
The object of this operation is to make the
porcupine keep till the end of the campaign, in
order that he may figure on the table of the
club at Constantine. It ought to be
mentioned that things do not always go off so
well, and that more frequently it takes several
days' hard work and siege to catch the animal,
if, and when, he is caught. For it sometimes
happens that the runs are so narrow
and the rocky walls so hard, that in spite of
the crow-bars, the hammers, and the heated
passions of the assailants, the child, however
capital a ferret he may be, is unable to reach
the porcupine's last retreat, and the siege is
unwillingly obliged to be raised. In this
way the sportsmen scour the circles of
Constantine, Ghelma, and Bone; they even
penetrate as far as the circle of La Calle, sixty
leagues from their starting point. Their
expeditions are more or less lucky and
productive; and, if they sometimes return with a
dozen head of game, which furnish materials
for feasting during several days, on other
occasions a month's journey of fatigue and privation
results in the capture of a single porcupine.

In such cases, the members of the club
meet as usual to celebrate their comrades'
return. The animal is served roasted, on a
wooden dish, and placed in the middle of the
assembly, who are grouped in a circle around
it contemplating its beauties with intense
satisfaction. The president invites his right-
hand neighbour to help himself; the polite
epicure just touches the edge of the dish with,
the tips of the fingers of his right hand,
moves them towards his lips, and says, "I
have had enough." All the other guests
follow his example, and fall to on the
couscousson and the dates which surround the
dish of honour. Then they sing in head-
splitting style, with an accompaniment of
tom-toms and clapping of hands, in celebration
of their own exploits, past, present, and
to come. The hemp-pipe finishes the rest of
the business. The club meets again next
day, the day after the next, and every day
the same, till the neighbours begin to
complain of the disturbance made by the
hatcheichia during the night, and of the
insupportable infection inhaled by the porcupine
now passed to the putrefactive phase,—
higher than the highest six-weeks-old hare, or
grouse sent by coach in August from the
moors of Caithness to the valleys of Cornwall,
—till the police is obliged to interfere at last,
and turn both the game and its captors out
of doors, to open their sittings in some other
locality.

As the porcupiners wage no more than
two or three campaigns annually, they practice
hedgehog-hunting during the intervals, just
to keep themselves and their dogs in training.
When the weather is fine, and the moon