May 1, 1S6S.] 



HARDWICKE'S SC1.ENCE-G0SSIP. 



101 



valerian, &c— they have a passion for certain scents. 

 Russia leather is one ; chewing this, they anoint 

 themselves as far as they can reach, and tumble 

 about in a frantic manner. Here, doubtless, lies 

 the mystery of carrying berries about ; should such 

 be present where these evolutions occur, they would 

 be stuck upon the spines, and remain till brushed 

 off by the next hedgerow. This chewing might 

 also have given the impression that they were feed- 

 ing on whatever root or berry furnished the scent. 

 Hybernating is not imperative upon them. The 

 first cold of October the brood experienced made 

 them eat prodigiously, and in a very few days 

 mother and all four urchins were sound asleep in 

 the flag-basket. Here again showed another beauti- 

 ful provision for their safety. Smelling powerfully 

 (as at all other times they do) of musk, it ceased to 

 be perceptible the instant this sleep came over them. 

 Warm weather, however, coming on in November, 

 and food being kept by them, they woke up, never 

 to hybernate again. During their London life, the 

 supply of insect food could not be kept up, however 

 friends' kitchens might be kept under contribution. 

 Here it is worthy of remark that much cruelty and 

 lingering starvation is inflicted, under a notion that 

 they can continue to catch beetles enough to satisfy 

 their large appetites without further aid. The 

 substitute of bread and milk, however well boiled, 

 had a scouring effect ; nay, passing, in colour and 

 consistency, apparently unchanged, as if from absence 

 of bile, the colour of which is bright blue. They 

 seem incapable of digesting true vegetable matter; 

 as the mole, whose teeth are very similar, some 

 French naturalist has recently shown to be. As a 

 corrective to this looseness, egg suggested itself; 

 but every means of inducing them to eat it failed. 

 This then seems to be no part of their natural food. 

 The jaws, moreover, are very weak ; a snail-shell 

 fully grown exceeds their power, the quantities 

 of empty shells observed in hedgerows being doubt- 

 less those of snails seized whilst crawling, and pulled 

 thereout. 



All this, together with the slow pace and the 

 utter inability to make the slightest spring from 

 the ground, makes it most improbable that either 

 eggs or young poults of game are eaten by them. 

 Although fond of the brown slug, the slime is most 

 offensive. Their mode of getting rid of this before 

 eating is so ingenious as to exhibit one of those 

 approaches which instinct often makes to reason — 

 i.e., they roll it under their paw, as a cook works 

 dough in making pastry, till the exudation is ex- 

 hausted, and after all rub their chins most carefully ; 

 otherwise, it is very conceivable that a sudden 

 alarm immediate upon such a meal might cause 

 them not merely to roll up, but be glued together 

 most inconveniently. This happened to a hedgehog 

 recently caught, and therefore is purely natural. 

 They had a fair perception of their distinctive names. 



Whilst in Herefordshire, a large antiquated garden 

 was an Elysium to the last of my brood ; never- 

 theless, she would come to her name— sometimes 

 with a trot heard from the further end, at others so 

 stealthily that a touch of the foot alone showed her 

 presence — 'to be carried indoors and have warm 

 bread and milk ; and after burrowing awhile 

 between coat and waistcoat (a favourite amusement 

 with them), be turned out again. 



There is a considerable variety in their vocal 

 breathings, indicative of anger, affection, and so 

 forth. One is continuous, analogous to purring. 

 Any loud cry in the adult is exceedingly "rare. It 

 was never heard but twice, and that from the same 

 individual : once from fright, or anger at getting 

 his claws entangled in a cambric handkerchief 

 (these claws, when there was no earth to dig in, 

 were often obliged to be cut, an operation they 

 submitted to very patiently) ; and once again from 

 agony caused by an internal tumour, which quickly 

 killed him. Looking up into my face, he uttered 

 this piercing cry, came, got into, and laid him down 

 in the proffered hand, saying, as plain as hedgehog 

 could speak, " You gave me comfort in my dis- 

 temper once ; can't you do so now ? " And so he 

 died. 



Now, these in offensive creatures, of all the useful 

 denizens of the farm— be it quadruped, bird, or 

 reptile — perhaps of the most unmixed good, are 

 stupidly, superstitiously, and savagely exterminated 

 wherever they can be met with. 



George Cox. 



VEGETABLE HAIRS. 



A MONG the many objects of interest which the 

 -^*~ vegetable kingdom offers to the microscopist, 

 one of the most varied and the most universally 

 distributed is to be found in what are called hairs, 

 which clothe the surface of the leaves and flowers 

 of a vast number of plants and trees. These hairs 

 are appendages of and arising from the skin or 

 epidermis ; and although their simplest form is that 

 of a single projecting and elongated cell, they are 

 more generally composed of a series of cells, often 

 bearing at the extremity a glandular protuberance 

 containing the essential oil of the plant ; and the 

 variety of shapes which they assume appears to be 

 almost unlimited, while the characteristics of many 

 of them are so definitely marked, that, in the vast 

 majority of cases, it would be quite possible to 

 determine, if not the actual species, at least the 

 order or family to which any specimen belonged, 

 from the observation of a single hair. The hair of 

 the Hop-plant, for instance, already figured in 

 Science-Gossip, is so unlike most other vegetable 

 hairs, that it would be impossible to mistake it. 



The leaves and flowers of some plants possess 

 two or three varieties of hairs, often in close prox- 



