9 o NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 



but I never could find that they stored in any winter provision, 

 as some quadrupeds certainly do. 



I have discovered an anecdote with respect to the fieldfare 

 (turdus pilaris), which I think is particular enough ; this bird, 

 though it sits on trees in the day-time, and procures the greatest 

 part of its food from white-thorn hedges ; yea, moreover, builds 

 on very high trees, as may be seen by the fauna suecica ; yet 

 always appears with us to roost on the ground. They are seen 

 to come in flocks just before it is dark, and to settle and nestle 

 among the heath on our forest. 2 And besides, the larkers in 

 dragging their nets by night, frequently catch them in the wheat 

 stubbles ; while the bat-fowlers, who take many red-wings in the 

 hedges, never entangle any of this species. Why these birds, in 

 the matter of roosting, should differ from all their congeners, and 

 from themselves also with respect to their proceedings by day, 

 is a fact for which I am by no means able to account. 



I have somewhat to inform you of concerning the moose-deer ; 

 but in general foreign animals fall seldom in my way ; my little 

 intelligence is confined to the narrow sphere of my own obser- 

 vations at home. 



NOTES TO LETTER XXVII. 



1 Hedgehogs are indiscriminate feeders upon flesh or vegetables, insects or 

 eggs. It is persistently asserted by country people, and as persistently denied 

 by naturalists, that the hedgehog will suck the teats of sleeping cows. That 

 it is occasionally up to mischief the following note copied from the Field of 

 May 24th, 1879, will show : 



"Some few days ago a farmer had an ewe caught in some brambles, and 

 when he went to see his sheep in the morning, he found that something had 

 eaten the ewe's udder off. Of course he killed the sheep at once, and, as he 

 was taking it home in the cart, I thought it was a strange case, and got up 

 into the cart and examined the part that had been bitten. I saw the marks of 

 small teeth on the skin, and told the farmer I thought it was a hedgehog. 

 I set some traps where the blood had been spilt on the ground, and strewed 

 some small portions of half-decayed liver round about the traps for one or two 

 nights. About the third night the portions of liver were all gone. I left the 

 traps set, and strewed more liver, and this morning I had got a very large 

 hedgehog, a little over 2lb. weight. I skinned him, and examined the 



