78 



NOTES TO THE 



the hedgehog was munching up the attacking viper's tail. 

 The hedgehog did not suffer in the least ; on the contrary, he 

 ate up the viper in the course of the night leaving not a trace 

 of him. Pigs are said to be poison-proof against rattle-snakes' 

 bites. Mr. Groom Napier tells me that in America he has 

 frequently seen a boar seize a lively rattlesnake, which it con- 

 tinued to devour, little heeding its furious bites, for which the 

 boar was not afterwards the worse. 



Mr. Davy has had forty hedgehogs at a time ; he used to sell 

 them wholesale from 8s. to l'2s. per dozen ; he sold them chiefly 

 to shopkeepers to sell again. Hedgehogs are very useful in 

 kitchens, bakehouses, and gardens for destroying all kinds of in- 

 sects, especially blackbeetles ; they root in the ground for insects 

 and beetles. He has never known hedgehogs to eat any kind of 

 raw vegetable ; they are very fond of bread and milk ; lie feeds 

 them chiefly on " fat-gut " and offal ; they will eat a fresh-killed 

 mouse with avidity, and he believes they take a number of young 

 larks from the nests on the ground, Hedgehogs do a great deal 

 of good on ploughed cultivated land by destroying grubs and 

 other insect pests of the farm. In the natural state they lie 

 torpid in the winter for about four months out of the twelve. 

 They cover themselves with leaves, grass, &c., sometimes three 

 or four feet deep. The hedgehog did not grub about the roots 

 of White's plantains for the sake of eating the roots, but for the 

 insects and grubs at the root of the plants. He would not go 

 deep enough for " pincher bobs," which are the larvse of the stag 

 beetles. Pincher bobs are three years in the larval state. 



FIELDFARES, p. 98. The batfolders about London take numbers 

 of fieldfares, red-wings, and hen blackbirds, which, as a rule, are 

 killed for eating, there being no sale for them as cage-birds. The 

 cock blackbirds are kept alive and sold for songsters. Davy has 

 never known either of these birds taken by a trammel net on 

 the ground by a lark-catcher, as mentioned by White. White 

 does not state this as a fact, but only as an anecdote. 



If there had not been suitable hollies or trees the birds might 

 by chance take " their lodgings on the cold ground ;" as a rule, 

 fieldfares and redwings are shy. After they have been pressed 

 for animal food and driven to the berries by the snow, in a few 

 days they become very poor and emaciated, and not worth 

 powder and shot. 



Fieldfares first arrive in large flocks in October with the red- 

 wing and missel-thrush. They feed on the mountain ash and 

 any kind of berry food. 



