NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE 67 



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 pro- 

 ceedings 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 observations at home. 



NOTES 



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, w ^ 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 2 Ib. weight. I skinned him, and 

 examined the stomach, and found in it some soft dark-brown pulpy substance, 

 mixed with a small quantity of wool. 



"W. R. SMITH, GAMEKEEPER, 



Okehampton, N. Devon." 



G. C. D. 



2 The fieldfare and redwing nest among the pines and firs of Norway and 

 Sweden, and arrive in England in large flocks in the winter. G. C. D. 



