68 ERINACEID^— ERINACEUS 



the other. An incautious approach ended the fight, and they 

 both scuttled into the bushes. They had been tearing at each 

 other for eight minutes in his sight. Mr Moffat writes me in 

 similar strain, but in his experience the combatants are so 

 cautious as rarely to arrive at close quarters. 



Amongst the ancients the Hedgehog was the subject of 

 many superstitions and prejudices. Not the least curious 

 is that repeated with variations by many authors, and 

 of which Topsel's version runs : — " When he findeth apples 

 or grapes on the earth, he rowleth himself upon them, untill 

 he have filled all his prickles, and then carryeth them home 

 to his den, never bearing above one in his mouth." To 

 this some add the scaling of trees to secure their fruit, and 

 A. R. Forbes quotes the Gaelic legend of the Hedgehog's hoard, 

 or cnuasachd na grdineag, signifying that all things gathered 

 in this world must be left at the grave, just as the Hedgehog 

 has to leave its burden of crab-apples at the narrow entrance 

 of its den. Another example of mediaeval natural history 

 may be found in a sixteenth-century treatise on riding,^ 

 by Thomas Blundevill, wherein it is gravely stated that " the 

 shirle {i.e., shrill) crye of a hedgeog strayt teyed by the foote 

 under the Horses tayle, is a remedye of like force" for a 

 jibbing horse. 



An ancient belief which still survives in many country dis- 

 tricts,^ namely, that the Urchin sucks the cows during the night, 

 seems at first sight to be in the highest degree improb- 

 able, and was accordingly scoffed at by Bell, who has 

 been followed by most modern writers. But in favour of 

 the prosecution it must in fairness be recorded that there 

 exists a definite signed description of the finding of a 

 hedgehog close to a milch goat in weather so warm as 

 almost to preclude the suggestion of its having sought the 

 goat for heat's sake.^ Again, the late J. H. Gurney (senior) 

 printed the signed statement of a servant who found two hedge- 



^ A New Book containing the Art of Riding, published "at the sign of the Hedj^e- 

 hog, St Paul's Churchyard," ed. of 157 — . 



^ E.g., Nidderdale, Yorkshire (Storey), and stated by Spicer {Zoologist, 1858, 

 6058) to be very generally believed by the lower orders of the south of 

 England. 



^ A. C. Mackie, Nature Notes, 1901, 136, 



