92 IN NATURE'S WAYS 



quaint little hedge-pigs begin to move and play. The 

 mother guards them well, and diligently brings them in 

 worms and beetles. 



Young hedgehogs easily are reared on a diet of 

 bread and milk, and learn to know those who feed them, 

 coming for their meals. While they are interesting little 

 creatures to watch in a garden, they are much given to 

 wandering. They will do good work in a house by 

 eating cockroaches. 



When curled up into a round ball of spines the 

 hedgehog has little to fear from any natural enemy 

 like the fox, and usually the dog that tries to make him 

 uncurl only hurts himself. But clever dogs, trained 

 to tackle hedgehogs by a keeper who wishes to clear 

 them from his hedges, know how to attack them at the 

 one weak spot, where the head is tucked in. 



When in autumn the hedgehog falls into the deep, 

 long sleep of winter, he is living on his reserve supply 

 of fat, and his life then is at a very low ebb the 

 breathing slow, the heart scarcely beating. He sleeps 

 amid leaves in a ditch, or in a hedge-bank hole or 

 beneath an old tree's roots, never stirring from autumn 

 to spring. 



CUidotoed Spappoios 



" When the house-sparrows deprive my martins of their nests, as 

 soon as I cause one to be shot, the other, be it cock or hen, presently 

 procures a mate, and so for several times following. " 



