296 APPENDIX BY THE 



mechanism, and the skin of the back is also capable of 

 being drawn up like a hood, or pouch, covering the head 

 and limbs. There is apparently no effort connected with 

 this change of shape, for the little creature will roll itself 

 up in the twinkling of an eye, and frequently, when desi- 

 rous of descending a wall or abrupt bank, it will run to 

 the edge, and without hesitation, turn itself into a ball 

 and throw itself off, trusting entirely to the strength and 

 elasticity of its spines, for protection in the fall. 



The Hedgehog feeds chiefly upon insects, although it 

 also eats fruits and eggs, and will even attack frogs and 

 enakes. Those little animals sleep away the winter, and 

 do not awake until the warm weather has fairly set in. 



The ignorant are ever making sad mistakes between 

 their true friends and their enemies, and the poor little 

 hedgehog, which is rather serviceable to man than other- 

 wise, by devouring noxious insects, has long been cruelly 

 persecuted by the peasantry of Europe. It has been 

 accused of draining the udders of cows as they lie in the 

 meadows at night, and otherwise injuring them ; " all ur- 

 chin blasts and ill-luck signs," says the spirit in Cosmos, 

 the urchin being another name for the hedgehog, which, 

 in fact, if it creeps about the cattle, is only in pursuit of 

 the flies that annoy them. 



The Porcupine is sometimes called the hedgehog, but 

 very erroneously, being a larger animal, of very different 

 habits, and belonging to a different order. 



The nest of the hedgehog is said to be very skillfully 

 prepared, and the female is a particularly watchful mother. 

 A touching incident is related which proves the strength 

 of maternal instinct in these creatures ; a nest of small 

 hedgehogs lay in a garden, whence every evening the 

 mother passed by a gate into an adjoining copse in search 

 o food for her young. On one occasion the gate was 



