THE HEDGEHOG OR URCHIN 71 



in between the two and thus clambered out. It seems to have 

 no fear of falHng-, and alights on its feet in leaping off a table to 

 the ground, with the air and elasticity of an animal thoroughly- 

 accustomed to such performances.^ It has even been observed 

 to drop five feet down a bank into a river, across which it 

 proceeded to swim.^ As a swimmer its proficiency at least 

 equals its needs, and it must be at times capable of considerable 

 achievements in this direction.^ Mr Cocks once knew one to 

 land at Great Marlow after a swim in the Thames, which must 

 have extended, probably down stream, for some hundreds of yards. 

 Mr Millais has drawn one in the water ; ^ the animal is immersed 

 deeply, with back, eyes, and snout just above the surface. 



In the daytime the Hedgehog retires to a warm, soft nest 

 of moss and leaves, where, rolling itself into a compact ball, it 

 sleeps heavily and with much snoring until the approach of night 

 summons it to the outer world. This nest is usually placed in 

 some covered situation, as in the hollow of a tree decayed at 

 the base, or amongst the naked roots from which the earth has 

 been washed away, in holes of rocks, in a dry hedgerow, or 

 under the brushwood in a coppice. The favourite materials 

 are withered leaves, perhaps because they are effective in keep- 

 ing out the wet. There is no definite arrangement of the 

 nest, but the animal is well concealed by a coating of leaves, 

 which, becoming perforated by its spines, often remain attached 

 to it after it has left its bed. 



The nest is never (in the wild state) encumbered by the 

 stores which provident animals such as rodents lay up for 

 their winter use. Instead, the Hedgehog trusts to hibernation 

 to carry it through the lean months of the year, and then sub- 

 sists on the thick masses of fat which by the onset of autumn 

 have accumulated in its body.^ This hibernation, although 

 well known to be extremely irregular in captive animals, had 



^ From greater heights it probably alights on its bristles — see above, p. 58, 

 ■ and Atkinson, <7^. «V. Moffat has sent me details of a third method of alighting; 

 he once saw one, before dropping from a height of not more than four feet, spread 

 itself out into "an almost flat" shape, evidently with a view to break the fall. 



^ H. J. Charbonnier. ^ See Max Peacock, Naturalist, I90i> 44- 



* The Mammals of Great Britain and Ireland, vol. i., plate facing p. 112. 



'' A male dissected by Robert Patterson on 15th September had the dorsal fat- 

 layer fully a quarter of an inch thick ; see Irish Naturalist, 1901, 254. This fat is 

 used by labourers as a salve for rheumatism (Jones, Woodcraft, 1910, loi). 



