108 Habits of the Hedgehog. 



Although I hid them near a pond, he suspected my purpose, 

 and sought them out, and killed them all. — Lansdown 

 Guilding. St. Vincent, May 1. 1830. 



It is not thirty-two years ago since our churchwardens gave 

 3d. for the body of every hedgehog brought to them that had 

 been destroyed within the parish, because it was the general 

 opinion that they sucked milk from cows. Some of my neigh- 

 bours still contend that they do ; and that they roll amongst 

 crab apples, that the crabs stick to their prickles, and are thus 

 carried into their holes. If you attempt to reason with these 

 persons, they will tell you, rather than give up their point, 

 that they have seen the hedgehog do these things. In No- 

 vember, 1831, I gave 2d. for a hedgehog to prevent its being 

 killed. It is now with us, and although we supplied it with 

 food, I am not certain that it ate any all winter ; of apples 

 (and among them the kind called the French crab), I am 

 certain that it did not eat any. It now (April) lives prin- 

 cipally upon bread soaked in water. It sleeps all day, and 

 begins to bustle about at seven or eight o'clock in the evening. 

 We provide it food against this time. Although it would not, 

 at first, let us see it feed, and we only knew of its feeding by 

 the absence of the prepared food in the morning, it has now 

 become so far domesticated, as not only to eat its food in our 

 presence, but as to feed, on the lap, on a piece of fresh meat. 

 On one evening I had the following proof that its sense of 

 hearing is acute : — My clock strikes with considerable inter- 

 vals between the strokes. On one evening the clock com- 

 menced striking when the hedgehog was about the room. At 

 the sounding of the stroke the hedgehog contracted itself, as 

 if in fear ; before the next stroke was sounded, the hedgehog 

 had partly relaxed itself, but, at the sound of the stroke, again 

 contracted itself; and so on of the successive strokes. The 

 hour the clock was telling might be eight. — J. D. sen. Water- 

 beach, near Cambridge. 



[I think I have been informed that this hedgehog effected 

 its escape in the end ; and this is no wonder, if the hedgehog 

 is by night, or at any time when left totally alone and unob- 

 served, one half so active as the allied animals, the armadil- 

 loes of South America, are, judging from the almost positively 

 ceaseless running or action of one species in the Zoological 

 Society's Gardens. No cranny or opening available to its 

 escape could remain long undiscovered by it. — J. D. I have 

 ascertained, since, as follows : — ] 



The hedgehog effected its escape in the end of May, or 

 beginning of June, 1832. I have reason to believe 1 recap- 

 tured it in the beginning of November, 1834-. A dog had 



