THE RELIGION OF NATURE 



haps touched her children, but without hurting 

 them, she should forthwith set to work and de- 

 vour them? If this habit were characteristic of 

 beasts of prey we might regard it as less " un- 

 natural " ; but the inoffensive, vegetable-eating 

 rabbit will thus make a horrid meal of her own 

 children and exhibit no unhappiness or discom- 

 fort of any kind afterwards. 



Perhaps, however, it obscures the problem thus 

 to emphasize the case of the rabbit, because the 

 hedgehog, which, although nominally an insect 

 eater, is as bloodthirsty a little beast of prey in 

 a covert or fowl-run as the worst of poaching 

 cats, will eat its own young as readily as any 

 rodent, and the reason for the habit is, I think, 

 in neither case hard to discover. The hedgehog 

 and the rabbit are animals which are liable to be 

 eaten themselves by beasts of prey. In the state 

 of nature a nursery of such animals visited by a 

 beast of prey is doomed, and the mother with it, 

 if she remains in occupation. 



So it would seem that the problem which nature 

 had to solve was how to make the best of a very 

 bad job, when a nursery had been invaded. And 

 apparently nature has settled it, in the best inter- 

 est of rabbit and hedgehog, by teaching these 

 creatures to forestall the returning beast of prey 

 and devour what was left of the family, thus set- 

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