52 VIGNETTES FROM NATURE. 



Hedgehogs are really very common 

 animals in England, and yet few people have 

 any idea of their existence among half the 

 hedges and banks in the meadows and copses 

 around them. The little animals lie hidden in 

 their subterranean holes or open nests during 

 the daytime, and only come out in search of 

 slugs, grubs, and beetles at nightfall. Yet they 

 are a precious heritage of our age, for all that ; 

 for they and the few other remaining members 

 of the old insectivorous group form the last 

 survivors of a very early and undeveloped 

 mammalian type, the common ancestors of 

 all our other European quadrupeds, who have 

 diverged from them in various specialised 

 directions. They rank as interesting middle 

 links in that great broken but still traceable 

 chain which connects the higher mammals 

 with their lost and unknown semi-reptilian 

 ancestors. Indeed, if we had never heard of 

 the hedgehogs and their allies before, and if 

 one were now to be brought for the first time 

 by some intrepid explorer from Central Africa 



