62 ERINACEID^— ERINACEUS 



found the remains of hedgehogs in the Foumart's larder ; but 

 Mr A. H. Cocks finds that captive polecats will consume even 

 the prickly skin, devouring the bristles clean from within. In 

 any case, there can be no doubt that both foxes and badgers 

 eat hedgehogs, both dead and alive, although, finding young 

 ones easier to kill, they probably attack adults only when they 

 are very hungry. In overcoming the prickly armour, Mr Millais 

 thinks that foxes may possibly use the tactics so successfully 

 pursued by the dog which came under his observation, as already 

 described.^ Colonel J. S. Talbot writes me, however, that the 

 method employed is to seize the prey before it has had time to 

 completely roll itself up, there being always a moment of 

 hesitation following the first alarm. ^ 



Mr Moffat tells me that hedgehogs are eaten by rats,^ 

 but it is sometimes uncertain which party is really the aggressor, 

 since hedgehogs are themselves nothing loth to attack rats, 

 and will certainly do so in captivity, as observed by Mr Pocock. 

 They have been seen to do so by a correspondent of Mr G. A. 

 Passingham's,'* and instances are on record ^ where they have 

 freed a garden of these rodents. On this point an anecdote of 

 the late J. C. Mansel-Pleydell's* is illustrative both of the con- 

 flicts which occur between hedgehogs and rats, and of the 

 activity displayed by the former, although apparently so clumsy. 

 He relates that at about eleven o'clock one moonlight night loud 

 cries were heard in the branches of a virginian creeper under 

 the eaves of a house at a height of twenty feet from the 

 ground. The cries gradually came nearer, until a rat and 

 hedgehog fell to the ground together, the latter with visible 

 marks of the rat's teeth upon its body. Mr Lionel E. Adams 

 also sends me an instance of a hedgehog killing a large rat, but 

 the former itself succumbed to its injuries a day or two later. 



The above remarks lead to a consideration of the 

 Urchin's carnivorous propensities. These, unfortunately, 



^ For the Hedgehog's sake it is to be hoped that the plan adopted is not that 

 detailed by Topsel, the nature of which prevents its repetition here. 



^ See also article on Fox. 



3 See also, for a description of such an encounter, G. C. Green, Field, 9th January 

 1892, 35. 



'' Field, 30th November 1895, 903. 



^ Lord Lilford, Zoologist, 1890, 453. " Field, i6th November 1895, 827. 



