64 ERINACEID^— ERINACEUS 



the extermination of the carnivorous mammals, and the increase 

 in numbers of helpless game-birds and their eggs, have forced 

 the Hedgehog into a position which it might not otherwise 

 have occupied. Its numbers become excessive, and its dietary 

 consequently enlarged, until it starts poaching and falls under 

 the bann of extermination. 



It has often been stated that hedgehogs will eat many 

 vegetable substances, including succulent leaves such as those 

 of the dandelion and lettuce.^ But Mr Cocks informs me 

 that a pair in his possession could not be induced to touch 

 raw vegetables, and it seems likely that such substances 

 would not be highly relished by such a confirmed animal- 

 eater. 



Its recorded dietary is, however, a wide one, and is 

 said to include acorns, wild fruits, apples, swede turnips, 

 toadstools, bees^ (honey ^ or bumble) and wasps* (which it has 

 been found eating at their nests or hives), frogs, ^ young or 

 wounded birds, mice, and, when they can be secured, rats 

 and rabbits. All sorts of offal attract it, and it falls a 

 victim to baits, such as entrails and flesh or bread and 

 aniseed, intended for the destruction of other very different 

 animals. 



It has been accused of seizing a hare by the hind leg.^ 

 In fact, it will eat any living creature which it can overpower, 

 and almost any dead one. That it will devour even snakes 

 when opportunity offers, may be taken for granted. But that 

 such a practice is habitual to it may well be doubted, most 



' In Cyprus the Long-eared Hedgehog, Ilemiechinus auritus, feeds on grapes, 

 and the Cretan representative of our own species will eat oats ; see Miss D. M. Bate, 

 Proc. Zool. Soc. (London), published 1st April 1904, 343, and 5th April 1906, 317. 

 Gilbert White's statement that hedgehogs "eat the roots of the plaintain in my 

 grass-walks" (Letter xxvii. to Thomas Pennant), has been shown to have been an 

 error, the damage having been the work of a caterpillar (see Letters of Rusticus 

 1849, 110-115). 



- W. D. Crotch, Zoologist, 1850, 2637 



^ William Storey, Mavwials of Upper Nidderdalc, 1885, 195. 



* Max Peacock, Naturalist, ist October 1900, 320. 



^ Toads have also been included, but probably in error. Cocks cannot induce 

 any mammals to eat them in captivity : but Pocock writes me that he has seen a 

 tame white rat lapping the blood of a toad which it had wounded. No doubt, but 

 for his' intervention, the rat would have killed the toad. 



'" M. A. Matthew, Zoologist, 1887, 233 ; and William Thompson quotes the 

 Gardener's Chronicle, 1 846, 480, for an assault upon a leveret. 



