More Beasts for Worse Children by  Hilaire Belloc
Table of Contents
Introduction
The Python
The Welsh Mutton
The Porcupine
The Scorpion
The Crocodile
The Vulture
The Bison
The Viper
The Llama
The Chamois
The Frozen Mammoth
The Microbe

The Porcupine


[Illustration]

What! Would you slap the Porcupine?

Unhappy child—desist!

Alas! That any friend of mine

Should turn Tupto-philist.*

* From the "tupto"=I strike; "philo"=I love; one that loves to strike; The word is not found in classical Greek, nor does it occur among the writers of the Renaissance—nor anywhere else.


[Illustration]

To strike the meanest and the least

Of creatures is a sin.


[Illustration]

How much more bad to beat a beast

With prickles on its skin.


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