CAIINARIA. 73 



three false molars, three molars bristling up ; and a small tuberculated 



one*. 



E. euro'pceus, L. ; BufF. VIII. vi. (The Common Hedgehog), 

 has the ears short; common in the woods and hedges; passes the 

 winter in its burrow, whence it issues in the spring with its vesiculae 

 seminales(a) of an incredible size and complication. To insects, 

 which constitutes its ordinary food, it adds fruit, by which at a cer- 

 tain age its teeth become worn (5). The skin was formerly used to 

 dress hemp. 



E. auritus, Pall. ; Schreb. CLXIII. (The Long-eared Hedge- 

 hog). Smaller than the preceding; ears as large as the two-thirds 

 of the head, otherwise similar to the europseus in form and habits. 

 It is found from the north of the Caspian sea as far as Egypt in- 

 clusively. 



The Tenrecs, Cuv, (Centenes, Illig). 



The body of the Tenrec is covered with spines like the Hedgehog. It 

 does not however possess the faculty of rolling itself so completely into a 



* Pallas has noted as an interesting fact, that the Hedgehog eats hundreds of 

 Cantharides without inconvenience, while a single one jiroduces the most horrible 

 agony in the Dog and the Cat. 



^ (a) The vesiculae seminales are two membranous sacs, situated beneath the 

 bladder and opening into the urethra or urinary passage. They are receptacles 

 where the secretion, called the semen, is retained. — Eng. Ed. 



^ (b) The Hedgehog is very common in the woods, copses, orchards, and thick 

 hedges in England, and its favourite food is beetles, to destroy which it is kept in 

 kitchens. It appears from the account of this creature, given by White, of Selbome, 

 that it can also feed on vegetables : for he states, that he has seen them engaged in 

 the very curious process of devouring the root of a plantain. With the upper man- 

 dible, which is longer than the lower one, they bore under the plant and so eat the 

 root off upwards, leaving the tuft of leaves untouched. But a still more singular 

 fact respecting the food, of the Hedgehog, was discovered after an experiment by 

 Professor Buckland, of the University of Oxford. This learned gentleman acciden- 

 tally came to the knowledge of certain circumstances which led him to suspect that 

 Hedgehogs preyed, occasionally at least, on snakes. In order to be satisfied of the 

 truth of his conjecture, he placed the common-ringed snake (coluber natrtx), and a 

 hedgehog in a box together. The latter had been bred in an undomesticated state 

 for some time in the Botanical Garden at Oxibrd, where there was no probability of 

 its having been able to see snakes. At first, the Hedgehog, being rolled up, did not 

 see the snake, when the Professor laid the former on the body of the latter, and in 

 such a way as that the snake was in contact with that part of the ball where the head 

 and tail met. As soon as the snake began to move, the hedgehog started, and open- 

 ing himself up, gave the snake a vigorous bite, and instantly resumed his rolled 

 state. It speedily repeated the bite, and followed it up at the same interval as be- 

 fore with a third bite, by which the back of the snake was broken. The hedgehog 

 then standing by the snake's side, took up and passed through its jaws the whole 

 body of the snake, cracking the bones audibly at every inch. This preparatory pro- 

 cess being completed, the Hedgehog commenced eating the serpent, beginning at the 

 tip of the tail, and, proceeding without interruption, though slowly, consumed it, just 

 as one eats a radish, until about half the victim disappeared. The Hedgehog could 

 not go farther from mere repletion; but it finished the rest of the serpent on the 

 following evening. 



It is a melancholy fact, that, in many parishes in England, even at the present mo- 

 ment, a bounty is actually paid out of the parish rates for a dead Hedgehog, from the 

 superstitious notion tliat it sucks the teats of animals. — Eng. Ed. 



