NATURAL HISTORY OF THE NEIGHBOURHOOD, 91 



Fair, fair creature, far too lovely 



For our sphere of crime and sin, 

 Where the fondest hopes of promise 



Flourish but to wither in : 

 Thou art gone to what is meetest 



For thine everlasting rest, 

 From the few who knew and prized thee 



To a home among the blest. 



If, from that far land of glory, 



Angels ever can survey, 

 Our dark earth, do thou forgive me 



In my lost and reckless way ; 

 If I stray with careless footsteps 



Tis when Memory's voice of pain 

 Stings my brain with recollections 



Of our merry mountain glen. 



LEON. 

 Devonshire Place. 



NATURAL HISTORY OF THE NEIGHBOURHOOD. 



Continued from page 52. 



Genus, Erinaceus, the Hedgehog. 



Sp. 14. Erinaceus Europaus, Common Hedgehog. 

 This too, like some other animals already noti- 

 ced, is the object of persecution, not only of 

 those who professedly can prefer no charge 

 against it but unseemliness, but likewise of 

 gamekeepers, who state that it destroys eggs 

 and the young of game ; this is untrue. Our 

 thickset hedges are inhabited by these creatures, 

 especially during their hibernation ; at this sea- 

 son they collect a quantity of straw, &c., in a 

 secluded part of a hedge, or underneath a stack 



