110 HEDGEHOG. 



crisp, frosty day in January [Letter dated 17th January, 

 1835], poked his nose into a deserted rabbit-hole in 

 this said bank at Eshing bridge. After a while, I 

 heard from the bowels of the earth a yelping that plainly 

 announced the discovery of some phenomenon in Natu- 

 ral History. The hole was very large, and the end was 

 filled with leaves ; after trying a good many contrivances 

 that did not answer, I hit on one that did, and I hauled 

 up a lump of dried leaves about as big as my head ; out- 

 side, the leaves were loose, further in, close and tight, and 

 after taking off layer upon layer, I felt some sharp in- 

 strument run into my hand, and I knew for certain that I 

 had in my hand what I had often longed for, a somnolent 

 hedgehog. I took him home, woke him up with a gentle 

 warmth, and had the intense satisfaction of seeing him 

 wander about a Brussels carpet, with his leafy great coat 

 on his back, making him look for all the world like some 

 new species of Armadillo. When he had satisfied my cu- 

 riosity, I had a sackful of dry leaves shot down in a corner 

 of the cellar, and in these I let piggy take out the rest of 

 his nap, of which, as it afterwards appeared, a term of 

 forty-one days was then unexpired. 



Begging pardon of naturalists for such an accusation, I 

 can't help saying that I think a great many fibs have been 

 told about the hedgehog. In the first place the old wife's 

 fables about sucking cows and so forth, were so horridly 

 unbelievable, and yet so damaging to little hoggy's repu- 

 tation with the vulgar, that the more erudite and more 

 humane became his patrons and apologists, and made 

 much more of him than he deserves. 



Dear old White of Selborne must have been taking a 

 nap when he told us about hoggy's liking for plantain- 



