176 



HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



rested in a copse by the river side, of which the 

 underwood was all broom in blossom. One of the 

 •commonest flowers about Beaulieu is the dark blue 

 lithosperm, which grew in profusion in the woods 

 and hedges. Inside Beaulieu Abbey is a space of 

 smooth green turf, surrounded by the remains of 

 cloisters and conventual walls. This space is 

 carefully kept as a pleasure garden, and the old 

 buildings honoured and preserved as much as pos- 

 sible. A number of loose pieces of carving and 

 stones have been collected together and made into a 

 low wide heap. This has been planted with many 

 kinds of rock plants and bright spring flowers. 

 Daphne nemorum looked charming, and many alpine 

 plants grew freely. This rock garden and the 

 flowers which were encouraged to grow in the 

 ruined corners and walls were as pretty a sight as 

 any in Beaulieu. 



We were not fortunate in finding orchids. There 

 were Orchis mascula and Orchis morio ; also we 

 found one specimen of Listera ovata, but half of it 

 had been bitten off by a cow. 



Primroses and dog violets, anemones, and hya- 

 cinths grew in the forest, but not profusely, except 

 in some of the smaller enclosures. 



Although not conducive to botany, the ponies 

 with pretty little foals beside them, and the quiet, 

 contented cattle wandering out of the thickets and 

 across the heaths, were very amusing, and added 

 much to the life of the forest scene. Even the 

 black pigs, with their large families, were pleasant 

 to see ; they were quite clean and nice-looking, with 

 no superfluous fat about them. 



On our road home we found the meadow saxifrage 

 {Saxifraga granulata) by the roadside, near Whit- 

 church; and at Kingsclere, Solomon's seal in 

 blossom was growing thickly in the woods and 

 ditches, and very beautiful it looked. Golden saxi- 

 frage {Chrysospleninm oppositifolium) grew here 

 also. 



Stopping on our last day to rest at Maidenhead 

 Bridge, I happened to turn for amusement to a 

 number of the Graphic which lay in the hotel. 

 There was a great deal about the month of May, 

 and a string of verses which set forth how a charm- 

 ing young lady in a " Dolly Varden " hat, looked 

 into somebody else's eyes " that morning in May- 

 time," when " pale primroses peeped from the green 

 of the hedges, and poppies flamed red in the 

 ripening wheat." Very pretty, no doubt, but the 

 writer can hardly, I fear, have consulted "Ben- 

 tham" as to when poppies bloom and wheat ripens. 



Pinner Bill. M. A. Tooke. 



" Let the warfare of Science be changed. Let 

 it be a warfare in which Religion and Science shall 

 stand together as allies, not against each other as 

 .enemies."— White's " Warfare of Science." 



THE HEDGEHOG. 



(Erinaceus Europteus.) 



THE Hedgehog— one of our commonest and 

 most familiar wild animals— belongs to the 

 order Insectivora, which order iucludes three groups 

 of common British animals : the Talp'dm, or moles ; 

 the Soricidee, shrews ; and Erinaceidce, to which last 

 the Hedgehog belongs, being the sole representa- 

 tive of the family, as is the mole of the British Tal- 

 pidee, while the shrews have a large and wide- 

 spread representation, including natives of all the 

 Old World and of North America. 



The habits of the Hedgehog are nocturnal, sleep- 

 ing during the day in the stump of a tree, in the 

 rubbish at the foot of a hedge, or in some similar 

 place where it can nestle amongst dry leaves and 

 moss. It, towards night, when it is growing dusk, 

 leaves its hiding-place, and rambles along the damp 

 meadows in search of its food, consisting chiefly of 

 snails, beetles, and any other insects it may dis- 

 cover, hunting by scent— a sense which, in the 

 Hedgehog, is well developed. Its food, I have 

 said, consists chiefly of insects ; but I think that 

 there is no doubt of the carnivorous habits of the 

 Hedgehog, both from the observation of other sub- 

 scribers to Science-Gossip, and from those I have 

 made myself. Gamekeepers say that it will destroy 

 the eggs of game, and that it will even surprise the 

 young when first hatched, and therefore no mercy 

 is shown when it is accidentally snared or trapped. 

 Hedgehogs that I have kept have always preferred 

 raw meat to bread and milk, though they would eat 

 but sparingly of cooked meat, and preferred snails 

 or worms to either. 



The teeth of the Hedgehog are admirably formed 

 for crushing the shells or elytra of its insect prey. 

 The incisors are sharp, with a slight outward incli- 

 nation, which increases in old subjects ; the molars 

 are short and strong, and surmounted by sharply- 

 pointed projections, or cusps, which, of course, 

 prevent true mastication, the food being crushed 

 and swallowed in jerks in the case of slugs or 

 worms, while with larger insects the paws are used 

 to steady the mass while morsels are torn off and 

 disposed of. 



The structure of the spines is noticeable, affording 

 an instance of the same arrangement of material to 

 form a tube, which is to combine strength with 

 extreme lightness, as we see employed in the 

 structure of iron spars and pillars. If a transverse 

 section of a spine be made, we shall see a hard exte- 

 rior ring of a quill-like substance, to which projec- 

 tions of the same material, radiating from the 

 centre, are attached. The interstices are filled in 

 with a porous pith-like mass, forming an elastic 

 cushion. Exteriorly the spine is shaped like the 

 yard of a ship, and tapers to a sharp point at the 



