242 THE NATURAL HISTORY 



half a dozen drops of prussic acid to a spaniel of the 

 Goodwood race, and the effect, as a first experiment, 

 was too startling to be forgotten in a long life time. 

 The saturated sponge was gently introduced into the 

 dog's mouth, which was held open for the purpose by 

 a second person, and no sooner had the deadly poison 

 come into contact with the mucous membrane of the 

 gullet, than the animal, with a faint shriek, instantly 

 fell paralyzed, to the no small dismay of the assistant, 

 who had never heard of the possibility of so rapidly 

 producing death by poison. A similar dose of the 

 same preparation was tried a few days afterwards on 

 the Great Noctule, but with a very different result. 

 A few seconds after it had been given a perfect swarrn 

 of fleas languidly, and with difficulty, made their way 

 out of the coat of the bat, and were actually dead 

 before the animal they had infested. The latter re- 

 sisted the action of the poison more than five minutes. 

 More recently, we have seen a cat disabled in a very 

 few seconds by a dose of prussic acid, but on opening 

 its body twenty minutes afterwards, we found its heart 

 in full beat. The quills of the young hedgehog are, 

 as may be supposed, very soft at first and very thinly 

 distributed ; they gradually harden, however, soon after 

 birth, and in the course of a few months become much 

 more numerous. We have often found their neatly- 

 built nests, composed of soft dried grass and moss, 

 thickly surrounded with dead leaves, among the fern, 

 in rabbit burrows, between the roots of large trees, 

 and sometimes in cavities in decayed stumps, and, in 

 all cases, they appeared to be thoroughly weather 

 proof, however rainy the season might have been. 

 Those who have had the courage to cook and eat the 

 hedgehog, assure us that its flesh is far preferable to 

 that of the rabbit, though somewhat less delicate. 

 It is said to form a favourite pttce de resistance with 

 the Gipsies, whose recipe for dressing it is not to be 

 found either in Ude or Soyer. After killing the 



