448 THE HEDGEHOG. 
cockroaches in our kitchen it used to be lent to a friend, to whom it performed the same 
valuable service. In afew months those tiresome insects had again multiplied, and the 
Hedgehog was restored to its former habitation. 
The creature was marvellously tame, and would come at any time to a saucer of milk 
in broad daylight. Sometimes it took a fancy to promenading the garden, when it would 
trot along im its own quaint style, poking its sharp nose into every crevice, and turning 
over every fallen leaf that lay in its path. If it heard a strange step, it would imme- 
diately curl itself into a ball, and lie in that posture for a few minutes until its alarm had 
passed away, when it would cautiously unroll itself, peer about with its little bead-like 
eves for a moment or two, and then resume its progress. 
From all appearances, it might have lived for many years had it not come by its 
death in a rather singular manner. There was a wood-shed in the kitchen-garden, where 
the bean and pea-sticks were laid up in ordinary during the greater part of the year, and 
it seemed, for some unknown reason, to afford a marvellous attraction to the Hedgehog. 
So partial to this locality was the creature that whenevci it was missing we were nearly 
sure to find it among the bean-sticks in the wood-shed. One morning, however, on 
searching for the animal, in consequence of having missed its presence for some days, we 
found it ‘hanging by its neck in the fork of a stick, and quite dead. The poor creature had 
probably slipped while chmbing among the sticks, and had been caught by the neck in 
the bifurcation 
Tt has just been mentioned that the Hedgehog was in the habit of drinking milk from 
a saucer, and this fact leads to the prev alent idea that the Hedgehogs are accustomed to 
suck cows while they are lying on the ground. Naturalists have generally denied this 
statement, saying, as is true enough, that the little mouth of the Hedgehog is so small 
that it would not be capable of sucking the cow, and that, even if it could do so, its 
needle-pointed teeth would be so painful to the cow that she would drive away the robber 
as soon as she felt its teeth. So far they are quite correct, for both their propositions 
are undoubtedly true. But, nathless, there is great truth in the assertion that the 
Hedgehog drinks the milk of cows. I have received several communications on this 
subject, where my correspondents assert that they have seen the creature engaged in that 
pursuit, and I have been told by several credible witnesses that they have been spectators 
of the same circumstance. But in neither case was it asserted that the animal was really 
sucking the cow, but that it was lying on the ground, lapping up the milk as it oozed 
from the over-filled udder of the animal before the hour of milking had arrived. Granting 
this to be a fact, the creature can yet do no real injury to the farmer or the dairyman, as 
the amount of milk which it thus consumes is very small, and would have been wasted had 
it not been lapped up by the Hedgehoge’s greedy tongue. 
The Hedgehog is also accused of stealing and breaking eggs, to which indictment it 
van but plead guilty. 
It is very ingenious in its method of opening and eating eggs ; a feat which it per- 
forms without losing « any of the golden contents, Instead of breaking the shell, and running 
the chance of permitting the contents to roll out, the clever animal lays the egg on the 
ground, holds it firmly between its fore-feet, bites a hole in the upper portion of the 
shell, and, inserting its tongue into the orifice, licks out the contents daintily. 
Not contenting itself with such comparatively meagre diet as eggs, the Hedgehog is 
a great destroyer of snakes, frogs, and other animals, crunching them together with their 
bones as easily as a horse will eat a carrot. Even the thick bone of a mutton-chop, or 
the big bone of a fish, is splintered by the Hedgehog’s teeth with marvellous ease. On 
one account it is rather a valuable animal, for it will attack a viper as readily as a grass- 
snake, beg apparently proof against the venom of the serpent’s fangs. Experiments 
have been tried in order to prove the poison-resisting power of this strange animal, which 
seems to be invulnerable to every kind of poison, whether taken internally or mixed with 
the blood by insertion into a wound. 
On one oceasion, a Hedgehog was placed in a box together with a viper, and, after 
a while, began to attack it. The snake, being irritated, rose up, and bit its assailant 
smartly on the lip. The Hedgehog took but little notice of the incident, but, after 
