58 



BRITISH MAMMALS 



utters a hoarse squeak either when pursuing its mates or its prey. 

 The food of the hedgehog is, in the first place, nearly every 

 insect it can get hold of, together with slugs, snails, spiders, 

 and worms. It also kills and eats frogs, snakes (innocuous and 

 viperine), small birds, and no doubt besides mice and moles, 

 young rabbits and hares. Of eggs it is very fond. Hedgehogs 

 in captivity will also eat cooked vegetables, and they are very 

 partial to milk.^ Earthworms are eaten slowly, and are chewed 

 to death — that is to say, crushed between the long blades of the 

 big premolar teeth. Being so extremely undiscriminating in its 

 insect diet, the hedgehog can render the greatest services to a 

 house which may be infested with crickets and cockroaches. It 

 is one of the few vertebrates which will willingly eat a cockroach, 

 a diet which is most unwholesome for cats, and singularly 

 repellent. 



Its method of attacking adders is (according to Mr. J. E. 

 Harting) cautious and intelligent. Dodging the first angry move- 

 ment of the viper, the hedgehog dashes in and endeavours to infiict 

 a bite on the back. After the snap, it instantly ducks the head and 

 rolls into a ball. Unless the viper is disabled by the first bite it 

 strikes at the hedgehog's spines, of course quite ineffectually as 

 regards piercing its skin. The viper, indeed, may strike and 

 strike again till it injures and incapacitates itself on these sharp- 

 pointed spikes. Whenever the hedgehog thinks it can dodge 

 the viper's darts, or when that creature has exhausted itself by 

 vain attacks, the hedgehog repeats its sharp bites at the backbone 

 till the snake's spine is broken. As soon as the viper is thus 

 thoroughly disabled, the hedgehog passes the body gradually 



^ There is an old-established tradition, not only in England, but in other 

 countries, that hedgehogs will suck milk from the udders of cows which are 

 left out in the fields at night. This story is alternately revived and scouted. 

 It does not, however, seem by any means improbable. The hedgehog would 

 probably seek the recumbent body of the cow to feed upon the insects which 

 might be settled on the cow's skin. It is a well-known fact that when cows 

 or even bitches and other female mammals are in full lactation, drops of milk 

 will ooze out of the nipple. The hedgehog would naturally at first be attracted 

 to this oozing milk, and might from that proceed to suck at the nipple. 



