110 Birds in Plumage 



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The hedgehog, I have heard it stated, whines by night, fre- 

 quently, at short intervals, and this so audibly as to alarm the 

 traveller unfamiliar with its sound, who may trip, lonely, in 

 the still hour of night, the road skirted by the plantation or 

 hedgerow in which hedgehogs may be : this animal, it may be 

 assumed, forages for food by night. Shakspeare has attested 

 that the hedgehog whines by night. In Macbeth, act iv., he 

 has made his witches date the hour of night by these two 

 natural signs, 



" Thrice the brindled cat hath mew'd ; 

 Twice, and once, the hedgepig whined." 



Mr. Bree has supplied us, in VII. 545. note *, with ample 

 gloss on the first of these lines, and our remarks may contri- 

 bute to explain the second of them. 



Dr. Buckland and Mr. Broderip have related, in The Zoo- 

 Jogicaljournal, ii. 19., an account of a hedgehog's despatching 

 a snake, by passing the snake's body through its jaws from 

 head to tail, and regularly cranching each of its vertebrae in 

 succession. Our correspondent, Mr. Murray, has, in VI. 457., 

 these judicious remarks on this fact: — " To me, the experi- 

 ment proves nothing. The circumstances under which they 

 [the hedgehog and snake] were placed, were forced and un- 

 natural ; and, even by Dr. Buckland's account of the matter, 

 the hedgehog had to be goaded to the deed. It seems to have 

 destroyed the snake as an invader of its repose ; and hunger 

 impelled the hedgehog to make a sorry meal on the body of 

 its enemy [inconveniencer] ; for there was nothing else for it 

 to eat." 



Birds. — Notices of Birds in Plumage of an unusual Colour. — 

 Since I sent my communication on birds with white plumage 

 [VII. 593.] (suggested by the remarkable coalhood), a friend 

 of mine has informed me that, while riding through a park, 

 he saw a 



Yellow Bunting (Emberlza Citrinella) with a White Head a?id 

 Tail, so as to have somewhat the appearance of the snowy 

 longspur (Plectrophanes nivalis). I was the more struck 

 with this, as I had seen, not long before, an account of a 

 similar case in Pennant's British Zoology : here are his words. 

 "I received, in November, 1787? a bunting [which of the five 

 kinds of bunting is not mentioned, I say Jive, because the 

 ortolan bunting (E. hortulana) is now considered a British 

 bird] with a white head and tail, the head elegantly tinged 

 with yellow, the back white and brown ; the coverts of the 

 wings the same, but on both the white predominated ; the 

 breast had all the usual marks of a bunting." In Dr. Shaw's 

 Zoology is recorded an instance of 



A White Regulus auricapillus. [Selby, to avoid calling this 



