HEDGEHOG. Ill 



roots. "The manner," says White, "in which hedgehogs 

 eat the roots of the plantain in my grass walks is very cu- 

 rious : with their upper mandible, which is much longer 

 than their lower, they hore under the plant, and so eat the 

 root off upwards, leaving the tuft of leaves untouched. In 

 this respect they are very serviceable, as they destroy a 

 very troublesome weed."* Boy and man this passage 



* The idea that the hedgehog is phytophagous is rapidly losing ground ; the 

 following passages from the ' Zoologist ' are applicable here : "In the course 

 of the autumn of 1841, in one of my evening walks, I stumbled over a hedge- 

 hog, and on finding, by the sense of feeling it was too dark to see what it 

 was, I took it up and conveyed it home. I kept it for several weeks, partly with 

 a view to ascertain what it would or would not eat. The first kind of food I 

 offered it was raw mutton, and when I offered the meat the animal had been in 

 confinement about twenty-two hours ; yet, notwithstanding it was in a perfectly 

 strange scene, and had fasted only a part of the preceding night at least I 

 presumed so from the hour at which I found it it took the mutton into a cor- 

 ner of the room, and ate it greedily, making, at the same time, a singularly 

 harsh sound in the process of eating. I placed apples, pears, potatoes, both 

 cooked and uncooked, eggs, beef, mutton, mice, sparrows, &c., in its place, and 

 plenty of milk. Neither apple, pear, nor potato was ever touched. The eggs 

 were unmanageable by the poor captive, but when I gave them a slight crack, 

 their contents were speedily abstracted. The mouse or sparrow was devoured 

 at the first convenient opportunity, and at any hour of the day, while the beef 

 and mutton always disappeared eventually. The fat was invariably left. So 

 much for the food of the hedgehog. As to its habits I have little to say : I 

 kept it all through the winter ; its longest nap was for about two, at the most, 

 three days. If I set it free in the room, or it made its escape from its box, it 

 was very soon to be found among the ashes under the grate, attracted thither, 

 I thought, by the warmth. If placed on a table, it never hesitated about run- 

 ning over the edge, rolling itself up in an instant (as noticed by Mr. Jesse, I 

 think), and sustaining no harm from its fall. The gamekeeper tells me he 

 catches many hedgehogs in his traps, which are invariably baited with flesh 

 (Zool. 716), and generally that of the rabbit ; and when defending the poor 

 hedgehog one day, on the score of its harmlessness in respect of the game, he 

 replied by saying he thought it very curious they should show such a strong 

 penchant for rabbit meat, if really averse or indifferent to a game diet ; and he 

 feared that a tender young leveret in its seat would prove quite as tempt- 

 ing as half a young rabbit suspended over a trap. His reasoning was 



