716 



HEDGEHOG. 



grinders ; the grinders are furnished with lubereulate 

 crowns ; the snout produced and pointed, terminating 

 in a cartilage, with an indented appendage, somethin 

 like the comb of the cock, on the external margin o 

 the nostrils ; the body contracted, and covered wit! 

 short and strong spines, intermixed with hairs ; th 

 leirs short, and furnished with five toes each, armec 

 with disrging claws ; the body capable of being rollet 

 up into a ball at the will of the animal, and, when 

 this is done, the spines stand out from it in all direc 

 tions ; the fore legs are furnished with clavicles, so 

 that they have a cross motion. The females have 

 more than two mammae, none of which are seated or 

 the breast. 



These animals are generally of small size, and ob- 

 scure and timid in their modes of life. Their prin- 

 cipal food is worms, the larvae of insects, ground 

 mollusca, crickets, and beetles, and sometimes the 

 farinaceous roots of plants. So far as is known, they 

 do not readily attack any warm-blooded animal, arid 

 indeed the structure of their mouth is ill adapted for 

 such a purpose ; but they feed greedily upon carrion, 

 and thus assist in clearing the surface of the earth oi 

 noxious substances, as well as in destroying vast 

 numbers of those insects which are most eminently 

 injurious to vegetation. Hence they are of consider- 

 able service to man ; and as they in general remain 

 perfectly quiet under the hedges, and in other hiding- 

 places, and never do the slightest injury to anything 

 which is of value to the human race, they are pro- 

 ductive of good, and not evil, in cultivated countries. 

 Perfectly harmless as they are, however, various 

 charges of wrong-doing have been brought against 

 them. Thus, for instance, some have alleged that 

 they climb fruit-trees, and plunder the fruit by prick- 

 ing it on their spines ; while others allege, with equal 

 confidence, that they suck the cows, and wound the 

 udders of these animals in a painful manner. We 

 need hardly add that these allegations are not, and 

 cannot be, true ; but they are believed in some parts 

 of the country, and therefore they deserve notice, as 

 belonging to that class of absurd prejudices against 

 animals which cannot too soon be exploded and 

 forgotten. 



There is' no doubt that the singular form and 

 covering of hedgehogs has been the cause of those 

 charges against them, just as the singular form of 

 the bill of the goat-suckers led to a charge against 

 them of plundering the ndders of cattle ; whereas the 

 bill of a goat-sucker is so utterly unfit for such a 

 purpose, that, if we were to fix upon a mouth that 

 could not suck in any way, the very best one to 

 choose would be that of the goat-sucker. 



But it generally happens that, while the singular 

 appearance of an animal caused one class of super- 

 stitious dreamers to arm it with impossible powers of 

 mischief, another class of the same description of 

 personages was sure to endow it with virtues to 

 which it had as little claim. Pliny, the most labori- 

 ous compiler of natural history, if not the most cor- 

 rect naturalist among the Romans, gravely asserted 

 that an ointment compounded of the gall of the 

 hedgehog, and the brains of the bat, was the most 

 effective application in the world for removing hairs 

 from any part of the human body where their pre- 

 sence was not wanting ; and thus it appears, that in 

 tne matter of personal beauty, the Romans were just 

 as great fools, and, by necessary consequence, as 

 much exposed to the knaveries of quacks, as the 



patchers and menders of personal appearance are at 

 the present day. This, however, is by no means the 

 climax of credulity with regard to the wonderful 

 powers of the hedgehog i for the learned Albortus 

 Magnus, who was not only one of the brightest stars 

 of his age, but had the light of a good deal of true 

 knowledge about him, gravely asserts that an appli- 

 cation for the eyes is attainable from this animal 

 superior to all the "Euphrasy and rue" which poets 

 ever sung, or dreamed, or fancied. He says, that 

 if the right eye of a hedgehog is taken, and fried in 

 oil, and applied to the eyes according to the rules of 

 art, and when the stars are in favourable aspect and 

 humour, it will so " purge the visual nerve," that the 

 parties will thence see just as well during the blackest 

 night as during the brightest day. Whether old 

 Albertus, who was on some occasions a wag, as may- 

 be seen on perusing his work De Sccretibus, meant 

 this in irony, is not easy to say ; but it is certain that, 

 no application to the human eyes could make diurnal 

 and nocturnal vision alike, except by rendering the 

 former as dark as the latter. 



There are only two known species of hedgehog ; 

 the common one, which is found under hedges and in 

 corn-fields hi the richer parts of this country, and of 

 Europe generally ; and the long-eared hedgehog, 

 which we believe is chiefly found in northern Asia ; 

 but, though they differ considerably in their appear- 

 ance and structure, their habits are very much the 

 same. The hedgehog of Europe has twenty-one 

 vertebrae between the last cervical and the sacrum, 

 and fourteen ribs on each side, with the rudiment of a 

 fifteenth one. The long-eared hedgehog, on the other 

 land, has only nineteen vertebrae between the last 

 cervical and the sacrum, and thirteen ribs on each 

 side, with the rudiment of a fourteenth. Thus there 

 are seven lumbar vertebras in the common hedgehog, 

 while there are only six in the long-eared one. The 

 angular projection of the lower jaw is longer and 

 straighter in the long-eared one ; the bone of the 

 nose is also longer, and the whole anterior part of the 

 lead is more produced. In both animals the vertebrae 

 of the tail, though thirteen in number, are so exceed- 

 ngly short, that the tail does not appear beyond the 

 >uttocks. There seems, indeed, a truncation in the 

 )osterior part of these animals which we do not meet 

 with to so great an extent in almost any other. In 

 nimals which have the tail developed, and capable 

 f much motion, the spinal marrow extends into that 

 rgan ; and active animals, whether they have much 

 lower in the tail or not, have the spinal marrow con- 

 inued as far as the sacrum. But in the hedgehogs 

 he spinal marrow is not continued beyond the 

 eventh dorsal vertebra, so that four of the dorsal 

 and lumbar, and the three sacral vertebra:, merely 

 arry some nervous fasciculi. It is curious that the 

 ame deficiency in the posterior part has been found 

 n the toad among reptiles, and in thetetfodon among 

 ishes, both of which animal:-, are deficient of power in 

 he hinder parts of their bodies. Upon the ninth ver- 

 ebra there is placed a large muscular disc, consisting 

 )f concentric fibres, and extending a considerable way 

 >ver the surface of the animal, arid the contraction of 

 hose muscBlar rings brings the body into the form 

 f a ball, and also erect, so that they bristle out in 

 very direction those spines which, when the animal 

 s walking, are more or less directed backwards, 

 ioth species of hedgehogs get exceedingly fat toward 

 be winter, which season they pass in a dormant 



