WILD CREATURES OF GARDEN AND HEDGEROW 



help to protect their owner not only from 

 creatures which attack with tooth and claw, 

 but from blows and falls. It can roll safely 

 down from a height which would badly hurt 

 any animal without elastic prickles to break 

 its fall. The spines, which are prettily banded 

 with brownish-grey tints, are thinner at the 

 base than in the middle, and sharply pointed 

 at the ' business end ' ; in fact, we can under- 

 stand that the prickles form a most unpleasant 

 mouthful for any one of the animals that 

 earns its living by preying upon others, such 

 as the fox and badger, and that a dog 

 would have to be a very determined one, 

 and be backed up and encouraged by a 

 master, before it would willingly go at the 

 prickly ball. In this attitude the little animal 

 has all its soft parts well protected ; all that is 

 to be seen are the spines set in the leathery skin. 

 We can imagine a young and innocent fox-cub 

 out hunting for the first time by itself, seeing 

 something move in the grass, how it would 

 stand and gaze, dimly making out in the dark 

 the round shape, then it crouching and spring- 

 ing, and the whine of annoyance and pain as 

 pads and muzzle are pricked and stung by 

 that living pin-cushion ! After that it would 

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