NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 



89 



drop upon the turf, that beetles are no inconsiderable part of 

 their food. 1 In June last I procured a litter of four or five young 

 hedgehogs, which appeared to be about five or six days old : 

 they, I find, like puppies, are born blind, and could not see when 

 they came to my hands. No doubt their spines are soft and 

 flexible at the time of their birth, or else the poor dam would 

 have but a bad time of it in the critical moment of parturition, 

 but it is plain they soon harden ; for these little pigs had such 

 stiff prickles on their backs and sides as would easily have fetched 



HEDGEHOG. 



blood, had they not been handled with caution. Their spines 

 are quite white at this age; and they have little hanging ears, 

 which I do not remember to be discernible in the old ones. 

 They can, in part, at this age draw their skin down over their 

 faces j but are not able to contract themselves into a ball, as they 

 do, for the sake of defence, when full grown. The reason, I 

 suppose, is, because the curious muscle that enables the creature 

 to roll itself up in a ball was not then arrived at its full tone and 

 firmness. Hedgehogs make a deep and warm hybernaculum with 

 leaves and moss, in which they conceal themselves for the winter : 



