ERINACEUS. 95 
a set of cutaneous muscles, the most important of which, the ordbicularis 
panniculi, form a broad band encircling the body which draws together 
the edges of the spiny part of the skin. There is a most interesting 
account of the mechanism of the spines in Mr. F. Buckland’s notes to 
White’s ‘Natural History of Selborne,’ vol. i, page 76. A jet of 
water poured on to the part within which the head is concealed will 
make the creature unroll, and it is said that foxes and some dogs 
have discovered a way of applying this plan, and also that foxes will 
roll a hedgehog into a ditch or pond, and thus make him either expose 
Hedgehog. 
himself to attack or drown. Gipsies eat hedgehogs, and consider them 
a delicacy—the meat being white and as tender as a chicken (not 
quite equal to porcupine, I should say) ; they cook them by rolling them 
in clay, and baking them till the clay is dry ; when the ball is broken 
open the prickles come off with the crust. 
Hedgehogs have had several popular fallacies concerning them. 
They were supposed to suck cows dry during the night and to be proof 
against poisons... Mr. Frank Buckland tried prussic acid on one with 
fatal results, but he says the bite. of a viper seemed to have no effect. 
Pallas, I know, has remarked that hedgehogs will eat hundreds of 
