262 WITH BOAT AND GVS IN THE YANGTZE VALLEY. 



and again included numbers of these interesting little animals. Many dogs of mine have 

 been very keen in their quest, and I have often seen them leave the towpath along which I 

 was walking, dive into the country as much as a couple of hundred yards and return with 

 hedgehogs which they learned to carry most scientifically. On one occasion in the Big 

 Tree Creek at the Four Waters my spaniel assisted by Mr. Harry Maitland's fox terriers 

 accounted for eight, and a young fox terrier slut of very aristocratic parentage given to me 

 by my friend Mr. W. V. Drummond, called Diamond, because born in Queen Victoria's 

 Diamond Jubilee year, became an exceptional expert in quickly tackling and carrying 

 the awkward prey. On another occasion spaniel and terrier got me thirteen specimens 

 of all sizes, which were turned out in the Public Garden one Monday evening ; 

 but in a week's time they had all disappeared. The books describe the hedgehog as an 

 insectivorous little animal. Such he may be, but undoubtedly he has a weakness for eggs, is 

 an arch enemy to pheasant cheepers, is fond of succulent vegetables and fruit and is a great 

 consumer of unsavoury oflfal. His chief habitat, as far as my experience goes, is amongst 

 the grave mounds, and a special liking of his is for the warmth and fragrance of an old 

 coffin, especially one that is wrapped up in matting. I have seen hedgehogs when captured 

 drink milk greedily, which is a beverage they can scarcely be accustomed to in a state of 

 nature. To watch a dog manoeuvring to get a proper hold of one of these animals is highly 

 interesting. He cannot grasp it in his mouth, but has to wait until such time as he can get 

 a sufficiency of prickles together to bear the animal's weight. On one occasion a mother 

 gave birth to four little hedge-pigs in the cabin of my boat. 



• « * » 



I have never heard the hedge-pig whine as did the witches in Macbeth, but I have 

 known them to climb. In the Spring Race Holidays of 1893, 1 was on my annual up-country 

 trip with Mr. and Mrs. Haskell. We happened to be in the Lo-li-e Creek not far from HaiE 

 and the Hangchow Bay. Here let me give the very words written at the time. Beau my 

 spaniel was the cause of some consternation to my companions. He was what Freddy 

 Haskell termed an "idiosyncratic" animal. One of his peculiarities was a partiality for 

 hedgehogs, which he would scent from afar and bring back most gingerly to me. In fact, 

 so careful and so cunning was he that I never knew him to receive the slightest wound 

 from any of the scores of prickly pigs he must at one time or another have tackled 

 in the course of an exceptionally long sporting career. Well, he produced for our 

 delectation one evening a fine specimen of Erinaceus eiiropoeus, which in due course was 

 relegated to the dog-kennel in the boat. During the night mysterious sounds were heard 

 and Mrs. "H." was sure that they proceeded from some wild cat, wild beast or other 

 demon of the night. Her husband could not make out, as he said, what the devil it was, and 

 during the night Mr. and Mrs. "H." imagined all sorts of horrid things. Next morning, 

 after much hunting, the hedgehog was found quite at home on the boat roof, which he could 

 only have reached by squeezing between the stump of the mast and the cabin bulkhead, 

 a space of two inches as everyone knows who knows a houseboat. How he made the climb 

 is the mystery, but climb he did assuredly, and it was "piggy's" scratchings, and rustlings 

 and wanderings that had made the night hideous for my friends. In this part, and probably 

 in others, he is known as the "cucumber thief," but the nearest we could get to the local 



