VERMIN 195 



and beheld a hedgehog devouring an egg. An- 

 other time I heard a hen cackling in the wood. 

 Knowing she had a nest and was due to hatch, I 

 went to investigate ; getting near I could hear a 

 chicken. When I lit a match, there was a hedge- 

 hog eating the chick which was still in the shell, 

 and the hedgehog's snout was covered with blood. 



The first letter is important evidence, 

 for here is the keeper's diagnosis justified ; 

 he recognized the hedgehog's handiwork 

 before he saw the hedgehog. Admit 

 this, and the suspicions amounting in 

 their own minds to a certainty of a 

 thousand other observant keepers, who 

 have never had the chance of obtaining 

 direct proof, tell very heavily against the 

 accused. 



We have gone into this question at 

 length, for if we are to differ from the 

 leading authority on our mammals, 

 chapter and verse must be quoted to 

 support our case. So we now confidently 

 pronounce against the hedgehog, finding 

 that the race as a whole, and not merely 

 the occasional individual, is guilty of egg- 

 stealing, with strong presumption that 



