MAMMALS. 43 



like little pigs. They hibernate through the winter 

 months buried amongst masses of dead leaves or 

 under the roots of large trees. They must, necessarily, 

 sleep continuously through the winter for as their 

 food is entirely of an animal nature they cannot 

 lay up stores, and nothing can then be obtained 

 from the frozen earth. The female has six teats, 

 and usually has about four young at a birth, though 

 sometimes as many as seven. These are at first of a 

 flesh colour, and the spines soft and hair-like. A 

 young one in the Shrewsbury Museum, sent by Dr. 

 Sankey, has the skin of a slate colour. The spines soon 

 become hard, and in the adult are of a yellowish-white, 

 with a dark band round the centre of each. They are 

 not straight, but bent into an elbow just before entering 

 the skin : this materially increases their elasticity and 

 prevents their being driven into the body when the 

 animal falls upon them from a height. Foxes and 

 Badgers are said to be great enemies to Hedgehogs, 

 and are able to destroy them in spite of their prickly 

 defences. Mr. Buddicom writes of a young Hedgehog, 

 about half-grown, which he found near Ticklerton in the 

 summer of 1892: "We brought him home and took 

 him into the dining-room at tea time, and fed him with 

 sponge-cake, which he enjoyed immensely. The little 

 beast showed no signs of timidity, nor did he once curl 

 himself into a ball. [Gilbert White says young 

 Hedgehogs have not this faculty.] He bit at our fingers, 

 drank a saucerful of milk, in which he wallowed like a 

 little pig, and having finished the milk, bit at the edge of 

 the saucer, and worried the table cloth with great 

 energy, just as a puppy worries clothes and things." 



