APRIL. 67 



into the undergrowth mocks one's clumsy human 

 movements. If you hit the tree a whack with your 

 stick within two yards of it you have done well ; for 

 the cunning little vermin of course makes a point of 

 coming down " the other side " of the tree, and while 

 you are getting round he has finished his descent and 

 gone. 



THE GUILTY HEDGEHOG. 



Many keepers, however, give the first place in 

 iniquity, where game birds' eggs are concerned, not 

 to stoats and weasels, but to hedgehogs. On a gibbet 

 near here one hundred and sixty-four dead urchins 

 swing in a row in the wind, and poison the air for 

 many yards around ; and every one of them, the 

 keeper says, was caught in a trap baited with an egg. 

 This is only circumstantial evidence, of course ; but 

 there is so much more to the same purport that one 

 cannot acquit the hedgepig of being an inveterate 

 egg-stealer. This is a great pity, because he is one of 

 the most engaging beasts, more completely repaying 

 a little kindness in captivity with confidence and 

 affection than almost any other animal. He has 

 such a quaint air, too, of being a respectable sort of 

 farmer as he plods along a hedgerow, turning his flat 

 feet up behind the tails of his overcoat, that one dis- 

 likes regarding him as a poacher. But, alas ! he is 

 worse ; for should a sitting fowl or pheasant be so 

 unlucky as to be caught upon her nest by this slow- 

 footed marauder, he will make a horrid meal of parts 

 of her. 



