560 Some remarkable Vulgar Prejudices 



persecution against these animals was commenced. I was not 

 very well pleased with this, and endeavoured to persuade a 

 person, who was thoroughly convinced of the guilt of the 

 hedgehog, that these creatures did him, in reality, more ser- 

 vice than injury; and that the true motive of their visiting the 

 garden grounds was to feed on the slugs, which abounded 

 that year, and did great injury to the vegetables, flowers, &c. 

 Argument was, however, useless. He assured me that hedge- 

 hogs had actually been caught in the carnation beds ; and this, 

 though far from satisfactory to me, was in his mind at once a 

 proof of their guilt. Finding it hopeless to convince him of 

 his error, I gave up the attempt as useless. [Had the con- 

 tents of the stomachs of a few of the killed hedgehogs been 

 shown to him, he might, it is not very improbable, have been 

 convinced. See on the hedgehog, farther, in No. 44.] 



The hedgehog and nightjar are disliked on account of their 

 supposed evil habits ; but the antipathy entertained in America 

 by some towards a bird which inhabits there, of the same 

 genus. 



The Whip-poor- Will {Qaprimulgus vociferus), seems to have 

 originated in superstition. This bird is never seen during 

 the daytime. Its chosen haunts, like those of the nightjar of 

 Europe, are in the most retired, solitary, and deep-shaded 

 parts of the woods, and here it reposes in silence till the dusk 

 of evening calls it out to the more cultivated parts of the 

 country, in search of its food, which consists of moths, grass- 

 hoppers, and ants [and coleopterous insects : see in No. 44.]. 

 Such being its habits, no wonder that it should be regarded 

 by the ignorant and unlearned as the dread concomitant of 

 supernatural beings. Wilson thus describes its visits: — " At 

 first it issues from some retired part of the woods, the glen, 

 or the mountain ; in a few evenings, perhaps, we hear them 

 from the adjoining coppice, the garden fence, the road before 

 the door, and even from the roof of the dwelling-house, long 

 after the family have retired to rest. Some of the more igno- 

 rant or superstitious consider this near approach as foreboding 

 no good to the family ; nothing less than sickness, misfortune, 

 or death, to some of its members : these visits, however, so 

 often occur without any bad consequences, that this super- 

 stitious dread seems on the decline." It is to be hoped, indeed, 

 that, as science advances, these foolish notions will be entirely 

 eradicated. [For Mr. Waterton's account of the goatsuckers 

 in Demerara, and the superstitions there connected with them, 

 see his Wafiderings ; or see this account quoted by Dr. Drum- 

 mond, in his delightful Letters to a Young Naturalist, p. 129. 

 For a description of some of the habits of a species of nightjar 



