96 MAMMALIA OF INDIA. 
cantharides beetles with impunity, whereas one or two will cause 
extreme agony to a cat or dog. The female goes with young about 
seven weeks, and she has from three to eight in number. The little 
ones when born have soft spines—which, however, soon harden—are 
blind, and, with the exception of the rudimentary prickles, quite naked. 
They are white at birth, but in about a month acquire the colour of 
the mother. 
No. 150. ERINACEUS COLLARIS. 
The Collared Hedgehog ( Jerdon’s No. 85). 
Hapitat.—Northern India and Afghanistan. Dallas says from 
Madras to Candahar ; but Jerdon calls it the North Indian hedgehog, 
and assigns to it the North-west, Punjab, and Sind, giving Southern 
India to the next species. 
DESCRIPTION.—Spines irregularly interwoven, ringed with white and 
black, with yellowish tips, or simply white and black, or black with a 
white ring in the middle; ears large ; chin white; belly and legs pale 
brown. 
SizE.—Head and body, 8 to 9 inches ; tail, 5% inch. 
I have found this species in the Punjab near Lahore. One evening, 
whilst walking in the dusk, a small animal, which I took to be a rat, 
ran suddenly between my legs. Now I confess to an antipathy to rats, 
and, though I would’not willingly hurt any animal, I could not resist an 
impulsive kick, which sent my supposed rat high in the air. I felt a 
qualm of conscience immediately afterwards, and ran to pick up my 
victim, and was sorry to find I had perpetrated such an assault on an 
unoffending little hedgehog, which was however only stunned, and was 
carried off by me to the Zoological Gardens. Captain Hutton writes 
of them that they feed on beetles, lizards, and snails; “when touched 
they have the habit of suddenly jerking up the back with some force so 
as to prick the fingers or mouth of the assailant, and at the same time 
emitting a blowing sound, not unlike the noise produced when blowing 
upon a flame with a pair of bellows.” He also says they are very 
tenacious of life, bearing long abstinence with apparent ease ; when 
alarmed they roll themselves up into a ball like the European 
species. 
Hutton also remarks that £. col/aris, on hearing a noise, jerks the 
skin and quills of its neck completely over its head, leaving only the 
tip of the nose free. 
No. 151. ERINACEUS MICROPUS. 
The Smallfooted Hedgehog ( Jerdon’s No. 86). 
Hapitrat.—South India. 
DEscRIPTION.—“ Ears moderately large ; form somewhat elongated ; 
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