NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE 117 



year to year without being ever discovered so to do by the 

 curious observer, is to me very strange.] 



Hedge-hogs abound in my gardens and fields. The 

 manner in which they eat their roots of the plantain in my 

 grass-walks is very curious ; with their upper mandible, 

 which is much longer than their lower, they bore under 

 the plant, and so eat the root off upwards, leaving the tuft 

 of leaves untouched. In this respect they are serviceable, 

 as they destroy a very troublesome weed ; but they deface 

 the walks in some measure by digging little round holes. 

 It appears, by the dung that they drop upon the turf, that 

 beetles are no inconsiderable part of their food. In June 

 last I procured a litter of four or five young hedge-hogs, 

 which appeared to be about five or six days old : they, I 

 find, like puppies, are born blind, and could not see when 

 they came to my hands. No doubt their spines are soft 

 and flexible at the time of their birth, or else the poor dam 

 would have but a bad time of it in the critical moment of 

 parturition : but it is plain they soon harden ; for these little 

 pigs had such stiff prickles on their backs and sides as 

 would easily have fetched blood, had they not been handled 

 with caution. Their spines are quite white at this age ; 

 and they have little hanging ears, which I do not remember 

 to be discernible in the old ones. They can, in part, at 

 this age draw their skin down over their faces ; but are not 

 able to contract themselves into a ball, as they do, for the 

 sake of defence, when full grown. The reason, I suppose, 

 is, because the curious muscle that enables the creature to 

 roll itself up in a ball was not then arrived at it's full tone 

 and firmness. Hedge-hogs make a deep and warm hyber- 

 naculum with leaves and moss, in which they conceal them- 

 selves for the winter: but I never could find that they 

 stored in any winter provision, as some quadrupeds 

 certainly do. 1 



1 " There is one use of the hedgehog's armour," writes Professor Bell, " which I 

 have never seen mentioned, but which I had repeated opportunities of verifying 

 in one which I kept myself. Running about a small yard at the back of the 

 house, which overhung an area, it would go to the very edge ; and after looking 

 over as if to ascertain if the descent were safe, it would roll up into a ball in the 



