2 Christ V, The Ancioit Legend as to the Hedgehog 



Later writers have fathered upon riiny,and have themselves endorsed, 

 the additional statement that Hedgehogs climb trees and deliberately 

 detach and throw down fruit ; but of this Pliny himself says nothing. 

 I regard it as utterly absurd ; for, so far as I know, the animal has 

 never been known to climb among the branches of trees, though 

 it is agile enough to scramble up an inclined tree-trunk. 



Claudius ^■Elianus, another Latin author, who wrote about the year 

 250 A.D., tells much the same tale of the Hedgehog ; but he applies it 

 to figs, instead of apples. He says : — * 



" The Ingenuity of the Hedgehog. — The Land Urchmf is by nature 

 neither stupid nor unskilled in providing for its own sustenance ; for, 

 inasmuch as it needs food for the whole year and not every season 

 provides fruits, he is said to wallow in places where they dry figs, many 

 of which become impaled on his quills, when he easily carries them to 

 his hole, where he lays them up, so that he can make use of his store 

 when it is not possible to gather fruit from outside."! 



HL — Evidence of Medl^val Writers. — After a very long 

 interval, both in time and distance, we find Philippe de Thaun, an 

 Anglo-Norman poet of the Twelfth Century, reviving this story of the 

 Hedgehog carrying off fruit, but in connection with grapes: not apples 

 or figs. In a "Bestiary" {circa a.d. 1120) by him, preserved in the 

 British Museum, § we read that : — 



■' In time of vintage, hedgehog climbs up the vine : 

 There to the cluster he comes : the ripest he chooses. 

 Then knocks down the grapes — very bad neighbour to do it. 

 Then from the vine he cHmbs down ; on the grapes stretches himself. 

 Then on top of them rolls himself, round as a ball. 

 When he's well loaded, the grapes stick on him. 

 Thus he carries food to his children, by nature. "|| 



* De Natura Animalium, lib. iii., cap. x. 



t He speaks of it thus to distinguish it from the Sea Urchin (Echinus). 



X Ennacei solertia. — Erinaceum terrestram nee imprudentem, nee imperitum 

 parandorum in vit;e usum fructum natura reddidit. Quandocjuidem enim cibo, qui 

 per annum duret, indiget, neque quodlibet anni tempus fruges producat, ilium in 

 iocis, ubi iicus exciccantur, se volutari ajunt, et transfixas ficus, qua; non pauca; 

 spinis inhoerent, facile portare, easque in caverna congestas servare, ut inde pomere 

 queat, quum extrinsecus fructus coUigere non possit. 



§Cott. MS. Nero. A.V. [fo. 63]. Tlie passage quoted is printed, but incorrectly, 

 in Archieologia, xii. (1796), p. 304, and in Popular Treatises on Science -written 

 durino the Middle Ages, edited by Thomas Wright, p. loi; (Hist. Soc. of Science, 

 1841). 



II El tens de vendenger, lores munte al palmer, 



La u la grappe veit, la plus meure seit, 



Si'n abat le raisin, mult li est mal veisin ; 



Puis del palmer decent, sur les raisins s'estent. 



Puis desus se volup, ruunt cum pelote, 



(^)uant est tres ben charget, les raisins embrocet, 



Eissi porte puliure, a ses fiz par nature. 



