The New Noah Read Online Free Page A

round and the beam picked out the animal which had attacked me. It was a fully-grown bush-tailed porcupine. These curious-looking animals, the
hindquarters of which are covered with long, sharp quills, have a naked tail which ends in a bunch of prickles, rather like an ear of wheat. By shaking this bunch of quills on the end of their
tails, they produce a strange rattling noise, which was the sound I had heard.
    The porcupine had turned his back on me and erected all his quills and was peering over his shoulder with bulging and indignant eyes and stamping his feet warningly. I decided that the only part
of his anatomy I could grasp without much risk of being pricked by his spikes was his tail. So I wrapped my hand in a thick canvas bag, reached forward, and grabbed him just below the tuft of
spikes on his tail. The first thing he did was to run backwards, crushing my hand against the rocks, his spikes going through the canvas bag like a knife through butter. However, I hung on and
tried to pull him out and push him into another bag which I held in my other hand. I was so cramped in that narrow passage that it was impossible to manoeuvre the bag successfully over the
porcupine’s head, and every movement he made seemed to jab yet another of his quills into me. It ended up by him backing into my chest, and, as I was only wearing a thin shirt, this was very
painful, to say the least.
    I decided that the best thing to do was to try to pull the porcupine outside the cave before endeavouring to get him into the bag, and so, taking a firmer grip on his tail, I proceeded to crawl
backwards, slowly and carefully, pulling the reluctant porcupine after me. It seemed to take hours before I eventually reappeared in the open air and all the fight seemed to go out of him, for he
dangled there quite limply. I shouted for the hunters and when they joined me we succeeded in getting him into a bag. I was scratched and bruised from head to foot and felt that the porcupine had
made me pay very dearly for his capture.
    There were, of course, many other methods which we employed in collecting our specimens. We set great numbers of traps, for example, in different parts of the forest, but this had to be very
carefully done, for most of the forest animals have their own particular area in which they live, and they seldom venture outside this territory. They follow certain paths, both on the ground and
in the treetops, and so, unless your trap has been set in exactly the right place, it is more than likely that the creature will never come anywhere near it. Most people think that in the great
forests the animals wander far and wide all the time, but this is not so. Each picks the territory that suits it best and sticks to it, and sometimes these areas are large, but more often than not
they are amazingly small, and in a lot of instances an animal inhabits a patch of ground which is very little bigger than a large cage in a zoo. Provided that an animal can find a good supply of
food and water, and a safe place to sleep, within a limited area, he will not venture out of it.
    A lot of people seem to think that catching wild animals is a very dangerous task, but that to go off into the forest at night in search of specimens is nothing short of madness. Actually, the
depths of the forests are not dangerous, and they are no more dangerous by night than they are by day. You will find that all wild animals are only too eager to get out of your way when they hear
you coming. Only if you have them cornered will they attack you, and you can hardly blame them for that. But in the forest you will find that all the creatures which live there (and this includes
snakes) are very well behaved and only want to be left alone. If you don’t harm them they most certainly are not going to go out of their way to try to hurt you.
    So, collecting wild animals is not as dangerous as some people imagine. Generally, it is only as dangerous as your own